


A Blaze Across Time

by alutea



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: (sort of), Angst and Humor, Background Relationships, Banter, Bogus Statistics, Canon Compliant, Canonical Alternate Universe, Character Death, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Ensemble Cast, Epic Friendship, Ex-Auror Harry Potter, Exorcisms, Fix-It, Flirting, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Magical Theory (Harry Potter), Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Not As Dark As The Tags Make It Sound (I promise), Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Fandoms Not Mentioned in Tags, Other Ships not mentioned, POV Multiple, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Plotty, Real Statistics, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Social Issues, Swearing, Time Travel, also
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:22:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 49
Words: 172,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24255817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alutea/pseuds/alutea
Summary: At the end of his life, Harry is given the chance to alter the course of the dark reality his son Albus and Albus' friend Scorpius create when they use a Time-Turner to save Cedric Diggory's life. With the hindsight bestowed by a lifetime as Auror, Head of the DMLE, husband, father, and friend, he will make very different choices as a seventeen-year-old wizard to try and save the people and the world he loves.This story explores a Book 7 set in the AU from "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" where Cedric Diggory is humiliated out of the Triwizard Tournament and thus stays alive but becomes embittered by the experience. You don't have to have read/seen "Cursed Child" to understand this story, but it does touch (lightly) on some major plot points, so consider this a SPOILER WARNING. Also minor spoiler warnings for the "Fantastic Beasts" movies.I've been informed that if I wish to avoid reader inconvenience, I should add a disclaimer regarding the possibility of head explosion while reading this story. You are hereby warned and advised to proceed with caution; the author is not liable for damage to persons or property induced by the contents herein. ^_^
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Comments: 666
Kudos: 704
Collections: Greats fics currently ongoing, Subscriptions





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I've loved this pairing for many, many years, and I've been thinking about this story ever since I read _Harry Potter and the Cursed Child_. I'm finally attempting to put everything down because...actually, it's been one of the things keeping me sane during the pandemic.
> 
> I adore time travel, slow burn, and fix-it fics, and this one is all three (well, maybe not the first technically, but definitely in spirit). It's very plotty, due partly to the convolutions I go through in trying to write a canon-compliant fix-it, and partly because I can't resist applying logic to things I absolutely shouldn't apply logic to. The burn ends up being veeeery slow, so I beg your forgiveness and patience ahead of time.
> 
> This story is unbeta'd, but I would love to hear your constructive criticism. Come at me, I won't break! I'm trying hard to catch my Americanisms; Brit-picking would be welcome.
> 
> All recognizable characters belong to J.K. Rowling et. al. I am making $0 from this fan work.
> 
> Do not repost.
> 
> Please stay safe everyone, and enjoy!

For the first time in a long time, Harry rose with the sun, a feeling of gentle anticipation coursing through his veins like sweet champagne. His slumber of late was perpetually besieged by ghosts both past and present—no surprise, he supposed, given that the stack of pages lying on his desk constituted engraved invitations. He spared them barely a guilty glance as he dressed. Last night had been no different, but for the moment, at least, he felt wide awake, brimming with energy. 

He was pathetically relieved to find Ver, dressed in her usual snow-white table cloth, rather than Trody waiting with his tea downstairs. Trody tended to scold if he slept too late, or woke too early, or ate too little at breakfast (and today he intended to skip breakfast altogether). Tea, however... He finished the cup in a few hurried gulps.

"Thanks Ver!" he grinned at his longtime housekeeper. "How are the preparations coming along? You sure you don't need any help? It's pretty easy nowadays to find someone for a couple of hours, you know."

"Yes, yes," she rolled her large tennis-ball eyes. "So you said the last time...and the time before that...and the time before that. These young elves nowadays, they're becoming as lazy as the satyrs and nymphs."

Harry chuckled. "Speaking of which, it's time we talked about your raise again."

Ver's forehead wrinkled in distaste. "You talk of nothing but my raise! How many pairs of socks do you think I need?"

"As many as you like. Branch into hats, maybe," Harry teased. "Seriously, Ver, you know I can't do without you, and that means you should be paid accordingly."

Ver snorted. "If you were to advertise for a housekeeper tomorrow you would have elves knocking down your door." But she seemed pleased.

"So, all the more reason you should keep me happy by taking a raise."

Ver apparently decided to distract him and take her revenge in one fell blow: "Ms. Gains fire-called."

Harry flashed to the pile of papers on his desk with markedly more guilt. He'd faced down the greatest Dark Lord of all time—surely he could take on one slave-driving editor, however formidable? But writing was hard! He gulped. "If she calls again, please let her know I'll get back to her tomorrow," he requested with as much dignity as he could muster, before handing Ver the empty teacup and stepping briskly (not fleeing!) out the front door.

The day outside was perfect, a warm breeze ruffling through his hair as he tilted his head back to look up at the wide blue sky. In the distance, waves crashed against a rocky shore. A white gull wheeled overhead, and for a moment he flew alongside it wingtip-to-wingtip, leaving his corporeal body a mere dot in a vast sea of verdant green.

How long had it been since he'd last flown? He shook away the temptation to summon his old Thundershear from whichever storage closet Trody had undoubtedly hidden it in. But today was a special day, and he hadn't given himself the day off to indulge in idle pursuits. He set off again at a quick pace—or what passed for "quick" for him these days.

He had to stop for a moment at the bottom of the cobblestone path to catch his breath. He definitely needed more exercise, if walking down his own garden path was enough to wind him. After breathing deeply of the salt-tinged air, he straightened and smiled at the sight before him.

A tiny grove of trees stood in a rough semi-circle against the deep blue of the ocean, leaves of all shapes and colors rustling in the sea wind. The largest, an elderberry tree planted nearly fifty years ago, was more than twice his height. The smallest had joined the grove just two years ago, though the sequoia sapling would one day tower over the rest. Tomorrow they would be joined by a new sibling—his granddaughter Clara's. 

But first they would celebrate. He lifted his wand, and dimmed fairy lights flew out of its tip by the hundreds to attach themselves to the leaves and branches overhead. Come nightfall, the trees would glow almost as brightly as day. It took him less than an hour to fill the grove with his magic. It sang in his blood as strongly as it ever did, a joyful soul-deep thrum that he could never give up no matter how much his healer cautioned against overuse. Although—he smiled ruefully as he tucked his wand back into its sheathe and a tingling ache ran down both shoulders—his stamina wasn't precisely what it used to be.

He made his way much more slowly back up the stone path, veering down a well-trod side trail towards a gentle knoll with a commanding view of the grove below. A single mpingo tree, the oldest of them all, stood here, and he laid his hand against its gray sun-warmed bark in greeting. "Good morning, old friend. Fine day for a party, don't you think?" The tree's dense branches with their light green leaves waved as if in response. He took his customary seat on a upraised root and leaned his head back. 

It was tradition for the child getting his or her wand to pick a restaurant for lunch; he had a little time yet before he had to make his way back to the house. "Lily picked Fortescue's, you know. The boys ate so much ice cream they turned green whenever they saw any for the next six months. I wonder if she told her daughter that?" he chuckled. "I rather hope Clara takes after her uncle Teddy's side, wand-wise. I'm quite fond of you exotic species, even if I have to bribe Neville for help with keeping you alive." He patted the root, smiling. "Although I don't suppose anyone in the Potter-Weasley-Lupin-Scamander-Krum clan would have an affinity for Japanese maple..."

His arm was aching again; maybe he'd over-extended more than he'd thought. Did he have time for a tiny nap? Ver knew where to find him if she needed anything. Just for a few minutes.... Harry closed his eyes.

He awoke to bright white lights arching overhead against a roof of rectangular glass that was instantly familiar to him. He felt no surprise; it was as if the intervening seventy-odd years were already falling away, receding into memory and mist. He stood slowly and approached the tracks. A train stood placidly waiting before him. It looked sleek and modern, its brushed chrome sides gleaming and spotless. As he approached, he saw that it hovered a few inches above the tracks, like the maglev train he and Ginny had taken that time she'd been invited to play with the Tokyo Snow Cranes. 

He wondered what it meant. Was he so ready to move on that he'd conjured a bullet train to take him away? Poor Ms. Gains was going to be furious with him for leaving her with half an autobiography. And Clara. He hoped he hadn't ruined her special day with his untimely departure. What was it Ginny had said of him? "Time enough for all the world except his own?" Maybe he should have added that to the book.

He went slowly to an open carriage door. Was someone coming to meet him, like the last time? Or should he simply climb aboard and let the train take him wherever he was supposed to go? Was he supposed to go? Or was this indecision a sign that he was not yet ready? Before he could make up his mind, someone (or something?) stepped off. It—he wore a long black cloak, and a hood completely covered his face. He carried a scythe as tall as he, its silver blade gleaming wickedly beneath the artificial lights.

Harry blinked. So Death actually looked like every child's book depiction of him ever written? "Um?" Yeah, that was a fair description of what he was feeling right now. Also, "I mean, really?"

Death gave an aggravated-sounding sigh. "Humanity's capacity for blaming its own lack of imagination on others never fails to astound me," he complained in a mournful baritone that sounded as if it were coming from the bottom of a well.

Harry took a moment longer to parse this than perhaps he should have. (He was literally facing Death, after all!) "So...you look like this because I expect you to look like this?"

"An over-simplification, but essentially—yes," Death replied.

"Aren't you supposed to be—er, scarier?"

"Are you scared of me, Harry James Potter?"

Harry considered this for a moment. "No, but I also didn't think I'd be meeting you quite this soon."

"Ah," Death murmured, and Harry had the distinct impression that he was smiling beneath the hood. "Quick to the point, I see. Very well. I have a business proposition for you."

Harry felt his eyebrows rise to what remained of his hairline. "A _business_ proposition?"

"Allow me to explain. You know, of course, that time is not a straight line, that your actions and those of others can cause it to circle back on itself, to splinter and warp, to create a whole new history radically different from your own. What you have no way of knowing, at least from the inside, is that although you can create those splinters and tributaries of time, and to visit them as you might an exotic destination, they do not cease to exist once you leave them. Yes, in other words—" Death nodded at Harry's stunned look— "there are universes in which Hermione never marries Ron, never becomes Minister for Magic; universes in which Lily and James are not betrayed by Peter Pettigrew, and so survive. There are universes in which you die too soon and Voldemort reigns supreme."

Harry swallowed past a suddenly aching throat. "Why are you telling me this?" he whispered.

"You already know of one such universe," Death continued. "You saw Scorpius Malfoy's memories of it. Shall I tell you what happens after he leaves? Dementors devour Severus Snape's soul. Voldemort captures Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. He burns her at the stake and tortures him to death. Long, bloody years follow in which Voldemort rules unchallenged through his daughter Delphini. He grows increasingly bold, finally revoking the Statute of Secrecy and declaring himself supreme dictator of all life on earth."

"Stop," Harry choked out, his heart beating so fast he felt light-headed, but Death ignored him.

"Muggles and Wizardkind alike come to me in heaving, faceless torrents. But Voldemort underestimates the Muggles, as wizards often do. Unified against the chains of magical oppression, they begin to study the laws of magic with underground Wizarding allies, secretly sharing their knowledge through technologies Voldemort does not deign to understand. Eventually they learn enough to contain magic, to nullify it, to shield themselves against it. Then they bring the battle to Voldemort."

"Do they win?"

"Yes. Though they lack to means to find Voldemort's Horcruxes, they are able to neutralize him, to cage him and seal his magic. Then they turn against the rest of Wizardkind."

"Stop," Harry pleaded, louder this time, his voice ragged and harsh. "I know how this story ends. You don't need to tell me the rest." As Death obligingly lapsed into silence, Harry swallowed against nausea and struggled to slow his pounding heart. "Just—what is it you want from me?"

"I want you," said Death, "to change the story. Every death is a doorway. Your death and the death of the other Harry form a gateway to that timeline. The magic you have remaining to you in this lifetime is energy I can use to send you there."

"So you want me to stop Voldemort in that other timeline?" Harry questioned, bewildered. "But why? Don't you want to claim all those people he murders?"

Again, Harry had the impression that Death smiled. "Do you really think anyone can escape me, in the end? I do not reap corpses, Harry—I reap souls. Can you imagine the souls that Voldemort sends to me? Poor tormented things, cowering and stunted. The therapy alone overshot my millennial budget by six hundred seventy four percent. Point three five eight six. But who's counting?"

"Uh." Had Death just made a joke? Harry decided to carefully edge away from that question lest he started laughing hysterically until he cried. "So you can send me to that other timeline to repair things, but what if I just want to be done? I've been the hero once already—I've lived my life; isn't that enough?" 

"The decision is yours, of course." Death inclined his head. "But I have seen your regrets, Harry. They shadow your brightness like flies on a light bulb." He looked pointedly upward. 

Harry refused to follow his gaze to see if there were indeed flies swarming around the lights above. "You mean, I can save—" After so many years, he still found it difficult to say the name. And in fact, he realized, that was why he'd been driving his editor so much to distraction with missed deadlines lately.

Death nodded. "You have that chance. You have a chance to change many things."

Harry paused, but the conclusion was foregone. Something in him, deeply buried beneath years and layers of guilt and remorse, was opening its eyes and chanting softly, "Yes, yes, YES."

Death nodded at the open door of the train. "Shall we discuss the details, then?" He sounded amused; perhaps he, too, could hear that voice now singing its victory song. The manipulation didn't have to be subtle when you held all the aces.

"By the way," Harry asked curiously as he fell into step beside Death, "what did you look like when you met Dumbledore?"

As the train began to leave the station, Harry smiled and sipped a perfect cup of English tea across from a resigned-looking purple flamingo wearing a tiny green felt top hat.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your responses to this work—I'm so excited to share it with you! I'll try for a weekly posting schedule. But for now here's Chapter 1.

Harry awoke to screaming. It went on and on, a broken, thready sound full of loss, grief, and horror that sent cold shivers down his spine. "Stop," he grated out, and the sound instantly broke off. He swallowed against a dry, raw throat and only then realized that the screaming had come from his own throat. He tried to move, and the weak movement drove a spike of pain into his head that caused him to black out for a few seconds.

When he awoke again, the screaming had resumed. "Stop," he groaned again. "That is not helping."

"Sorry," his own voice answered him.

"Right, that's really strange," he mumbled. "Can we—I—we try not talking out loud? And not screaming?" _It hurts._

_Everything hurts._

He kept his eyes closed and stayed as still as he could.

_Death did warn me about going back too far._

_Should've listened._

_I—we—need all the time we can get. (And even so we couldn't save Dumbledore.) How long were we—was I out, anyway? (What do you call the other voice in your head? Me? Or you? Are we a 'we'? Or just an 'I'? Why doesn't it surprise me that Death didn't bother to mention this part?)_

_Three days, I think? We're in the third week in July._ Dumbledore's loss felt both incredibly distant and achingly sharp. _(Are you really my soul from another timeline? Or did I only dream that I lived another lifetime?)_

_We have a little time, then. (As Death might put it, I don't think we can know from the inside. You can think of me as an alternate set of memories—a split personality, I suppose.)_

_I have an old man version of me for my split personality. Why do I feel cheated?_

Harry imagined himself rolling his eyes. _Going back to the teenage version of me isn't exactly my fondest wish either. I was a whiny brat._

_Hey!_ There was a pause, and then a whisper of a thought: _You told me that I had to die._

_...I'm sorry._

_I think some part of me always knew... Like you knew, except that you came back._

_Yes._

_At least I got to live your life, in a way..._

Just then there was a soft knock on the door, and Uncle Vernon's voice came _sotto voce,_ "Boy?"

Harry snorted gently. _I'd forgotten he used to call us that._

_I guess we really scared him this time, since he's not shouting. Er..._ He had a confused flash of a man in a distinctive black-and-white collar bending over him, speaking Latin. _Did he really call an exorcist on us?_

_Yes. Don't make me laugh right now, it'll hurt._

Footsteps retreated down the stairs, half their normal volume. His uncle had apparently decided against trying the door in case his demon-possessed nephew decided to start that hair-raising shriek again.

_Not too far off, though. Ironically._

_What did you do with that piece of—you know? I feel different. I mean, aside from sharing my brain with another Harry._

_Less angry all the time? I compacted the piece of Voldemort's soul into a little ball and shut it away in metal box. Metaphysically-speaking, of course._

_But it's still here with us?_

_Yes. It won't be so easy to remove, unfortunately._

There was a spike of revulsion, but his other self didn't protest. _What next, then?_

A whole tangle of thoughts like "Save Charity", "find the locket", "what do I do with the Elder Wand?", save Moody", "find the cup", "the Ministry", "Scrimgeour", "Remus", "Tonks", "Tonk's Dad," " find the rest of the Horcruxes", "what do I tell Ron and Hermione?", "save Fred", "the Trace, ugh", "save Hogwarts", "save Snape!" unspooled between them.

_Er, a bit more rest, I think. Then we'll make a list._

_A list?_

Their thoughts were already growing misty and vague as darkness beckoned.

_Hermione always said to start with a list when you're overwhelmed._

_'s why...she's the future...Minister for Magic..._

When he woke again, it was dark outside. He cautiously moved his head and decided that the pounding headache that resulted was a few degrees off incapacitating. Concentrating on each set of muscles as he moved them, he slowly gained an upright position and set his feet on the floor. 

_Can't think like this...need to get rid of this pain...can't perform magic right now...asprin?_

_Aunt Petunia has some, I think._

_Stairs. Ugh._ For a moment the thought of all those stairs seemed insurmountable. He stood up and immediately put out a hand to keep himself from falling as dizziness and nausea staggered him. _Okay, one step at a time. We can do this. Inhale. Exhale._ He breathed out slowly, then turned and made his halting way to the door. There was an untouched tray on the floor in front of it. He nudged it away with his foot and opened the door to a dimly-lit hallway. He could hear the distant sound of the telly, so it couldn't be that late. Small mercies.

When he entered the sitting room, eyes slitted against the light, he found that in fact the telly had been put on low volume—or what passed for "low" for Dudley, anyway. _Huh. I guess I actually managed to scare them._ He slid down the wall to a sitting position on the floor and closed his eyes against the sight of the Dursleys frozen in place on the sofa, staring at his sudden appearance. His head threatened to split apart like an overripe melon as red spots flashed across his vision.

"Aunt Petunia," he whispered into a pause in the programming, "Can you get me some asprin?"

There was rustling and the sound of footsteps, which Harry fervently hoped was his aunt acceding to his request without argument, for once. His uncle, true to form, was not so complacent.

"Now see here—" he began at his normal volume, which was enough to make Harry black out again. 

He came to with his nose pressed against the floor, formerly spotless, now smeared with small drops of blood. His uncle had fallen silent. He checked to make sure the bleeding had stopped before swallowing back his nausea and levering himself upright to find two small plastic bottles and a glass of water next to him. _Huh._ He took two codeine pills and one of asprin and swallowed them down with a sip of water. Then he leaned back and concentrated on his breathing as the pain gradually began to subside. From the sitting room came nary a sound but a movie on the telly—surprisingly devoid of the car chases and explosions that Dudley loved.

He opened his eyes cautiously. All three Dursleys were glued to the screen as if the advert for a breath freshener now playing were the most fascinating thing they had ever seen. 

"Thank you," he said, and his hoarse, cracked voice made them jump as if he had fired a pistol.

"Wh-what's wrong with you?" Dudley was the first to recover.

"Hmm." _Does dying twice count as wrong?_

_Right now I'd take being dead over this migraine._

"Is it Vol—" his aunt stopped abruptly as he raised his hand.

"Safer not to say the name," he murmured. 

"Dad said you were possessed."

He slanted a look at his uncle, whose fear of setting off another fit appeared to be holding him at bay. For now.

"You're in danger, all of you. Once the protection over this house wears off when I turn seventeen, the Death Eaters will be able to snatch you up at will. You've heard the news about Amelia Bones and Emmeline Vance. They'll do the same to you just because you're related to me. The Order of the Phoenix has offered you protection at a safe house, and I'm asking you to take them up on that."

"This is all your fault!" Vernon roared, no longer able to hold back his rage.

Thankfully the pain meds had kicked in enough that he didn't do another face-plant. It still took another minute for him to find his voice, however.

"In a way, yes. Dumbledore should never have foisted me off on people so patently unsuited to my care, blood protection or no. It took a long time for me to dredge up any gratitude towards you, and even now I can only say that I'm thankful the abuse I suffered at your hands was incidental, mostly. So I consider my responsibility to you ended with this choice: go into hiding with the Order and remain as safe as they can make you—or stay, and face the dark side of magic on your own. If you are captured, I won't have the resources to rescue you, nor will I ask Order members to risk their lives for you."

"YOU—" Vernon's face was fast turning from scarlet to puce.

Harry picked up the two bottles and the glass of water and struggled to his feet. The sweat was drying on his body, and he was starting to shiver in the warm July air. He looked Vernon in the eye. "The choice I give you is a genuine one. My parents left me a small fortune, and I have no need of anything of yours. Not your permission. Not your approval. And certainly not your house. I won't be your scapegoat anymore. Speak to me as an adult to an adult, or don't speak to me at all. I'll give you one week to make your preparations. A week from today Order members will be here to escort you away. If you choose to stay, you will not get the chance again. Good night."

By the time he made it back to the top of the stairs, he was openly panting, and his shirt was soaked through with sweat. His legs were trembling so much the glass of water threatened to spill at every step. He badly wanted a bath, but he was just too damned tired.

_This is getting old._

_Puns, really? At least our joints aren't aching. And all our plumbing work. I'll have you know good plumbing is something to treasure._

_I don't want any details. I can't imagine how Muggles cope. Not being able to do magic has never been this hard before._

_Pretty sure it's my fault. I haven't had to do without magic since—well, since now, really._ He pushed open his door and set down the items in his hand on his nightstand before falling into bed. _Wait. Do you have a diary?_

_A what?_

_A— Nevermind._

He levered himself out of bed and grabbed a planner that looked vaguely familiar from the pile of things he'd hauled out of his chest. "Do it today or later you’ll pay!", it said as he opened the cover, and he chuckled a little in disbelief. _Hermione._ He thought for a moment and wrote, "I am thankful to be here. I am thankful I have a little time. I am thankful I've been given the chance to save lives."

_Really?_

_Gratitude is important,_ he replied in his own mind. _Plus it took me a lot of therapy to get to this point._

_Ugh. I don't want any details about that, either._

Harry smiled wryly and then wrote a beginning: "July 27, 1997: I leave 4 Privet Drive for the last time."


	3. Chapter 3

Harry awoke to warm sunlight slanting across his naked back. He'd managed to at least take off his shirt before falling headlong into sleep, but he could smell the stale sweat on himself, and his skin crawled with four showerless days. _Right. A wash first, then food, then laundry, then we make plans._

His pain was much more manageable today, and he took a codeine and asprin with a swallow of water before standing. He felt light-headed but no longer dizzy or nauseous, a vast improvement as far as he was concerned. The house was quiet. Dudley was probably off with his crew somewhere and his aunt out doing the shopping. 

Three hours later, freshly showered, his stomach comfortably full of roast beef sandwich, newly laundered sheets on his bed, he sat down abruptly at the tiny rickety desk in his room, staring at the birdcage on top of it. Hedwig!

The birdcage was empty. What had happened to her? Had the Dursleys let her out while he'd been incapable of caring for her? Why hadn't she come back? Did the protection on the house extend to non-humans?

He closed his eyes and forced the swirl of thoughts to slow, then crossed over to the window and opened it wide. He couldn't do much more for her right now unless he solved some of his other problems. So.

He took a spare piece of parchment from the messy spread on his desk and a quill and wrote "Goals" at the top. He underlined the word and stared at it for a while. Then he wrote:

  * Defeat Voldemort
  * Save everyone



_Defeat Voldemort and save everyone? Really? Is that all?_

He ignored the snide voice sharing his head ( _Don't you mean MY head?_ ) and added a column for Steps:

  * Figure out a way to use my magic while I've still got the Trace on me
  * Establish a timeline of events
  * Establish a secure channel of communications with Order members
  * Talk to Ron and Hermione
  * Warn or otherwise protect those who are in danger



_Talk to Snape,_ he thought, but didn't add it to he list. Likewise, _destroy all the Horcruxes (again)._

 _That'll do as a starting point,_ he decided. _All right, what do we know about the Trace?_

 _They can't tell who uses the magic, as long as it's near us,_ his other self responded promptly.

 _Right, that's pretty much what Moody told me. That's not to our advantage._ He thought back to the first time the Ministry had issued him a warning about underage wizardry and added, _It can detect wandless magic, and doesn't distinguish between a human and non-human source. Detection covers a range of at least five feet but not more than ten. The underage wizard or witch is likely the focus. The magic performed as well as our location is known. Things the Trace can't detect: using the Floo Network, using a Portkey, taking a potion, possibly making a potion (wandlessly?), riding a broom or magical creature, operating a magical or magic-infused device._

He pondered for a moment, then added, _Possibly an Animagus transformation._

_How do you figure that?_

_My guess is the Trace is tied to an expenditure of magical energy. The Animagus transformation doesn't expend energy, only shifts it._

_Can we break it?_

_It's ritual magic, renewed every year by the Ministry. So unless we have about a hundred people willing to join their magics for two days for a counter-ritual..._

_All right, what about using magic in an Unplottable location?_

_It would still be able to tell what spell we performed, even if not where._

_Damn it. Are we stuck then? But also, do we care? It's not like being expelled even counts as a tragedy at this point._

_Having the Ministry be able to pinpoint our location every time we perform a spell outside of, say, Headquarters is not exactly ideal, but it is an option, yes. Unless/until Voldemort takes it over, of course._

He thought about it for a few minutes more, but no new ideas came to him. _The timeline, next. Focusing on the short term for now._

He wrote down Charity Burbage's "resignation," the fall of the Ministry, Moody's death, Mundungus' theft of the locket, all the Muggle disasters he could remember, then re-sorted them in order of urgency.

_Has Charity written her opinion for the Prophet yet?_

_I don't—hang on._ There was a paper sitting on the sill outside his closed window. When he looked down, he saw several more lying in the garden. He raced downstairs to retrieve them, then opened each to the letters to the editorials page.

There, in yesterday's paper, was an article titled "Let Us Judge Each Other by Our Actions, Not By Our Blood"—by Charity Burbage, Professor of Muggle Studies at the Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft.

"Shite," Harry muttered. He closed the paper and looked down his list again.

_We need help. We can't do this alone._

_The Order?_

_Maybe. Yes. But first I think we need an audience with the Minister for Magic._

He stood guard by the window until he saw Dudley coming down the drive with Piers, the two boys looking more subdued than usual. He threw on his Invisibility Cloak and went quickly but noiselessly down the stairs, then slipped out the front door past his cousin as soon as it opened. The walk to the bus terminal was interminably long and hot, and made more uncomfortable still with the need to stay beneath the Cloak. Luckily, the bus arrived in short order, and he followed an elderly man with a cane onto it. He couldn't pay, of course, and noted that he owed the Abellio Surrey company £3.20. He moved to the back of the blessedly air-conditioned vehicle and carefully avoided bumping into people getting on and off at various stops until the bus reached the station at Staines, where he followed most of the other passengers out.

He traveled by train to the London Underground, then took the Tube to Westminster Station. When at last he reached the Ministry, it was mid-afternoon, and the sidewalks and buildings around him blazed with heat. He paused to get his bearings. He had worked here for nearly half a century, then sidestepped every invitation to come back for the last two decades. To his other self, of course, the Ministry was an impenetrable maze. For a moment the meshing of those two sets of memories completely disorientated him. 

_The old Aurors' entrance is over there._ He started walking toward a small alley to one side. _That'll be our best bet._

_The old Aurors' entrance is a sewer cover? Do departments host a contest for most disgusting method of entry or something?_

_I wouldn't be surprised. Hermione put her foot down and insisted the new Aurors' entrance be over a storm drain, though._ Harry knelt and placed his hand against the rusty warm metal to verify his identity as an Auror. He didn't know the password, but he did know the spell-lock system. He pushed his magic into it, feeling around the contours until he found the right fit, then twisted.

The cover swung open to the scent of public toilet with a side of rotting garbage. He held his breath and jumped.

The Aurors' entrance spat him out into the fireplace at the end of a large room with an oval table taking up most of the space—the Aurors' Briefing Room, which was thankfully empty at the moment. He cautiously looked out. The Head Auror's office door was closed. It was connected by direct Floo to the Minister's office, which was how Scrimgeour had been taken in his timeline. With all the magic detectors in the office, it was unlikely he would be able to sneak in without setting off something or other. Looked like he had to take the long way up, then.

Just then, with a leap of satisfaction, he saw Kingsley. _Kingsley always did have the best timing of anyone I'd every met,_ he grinned.

Judging by his trajectory, the Auror was heading to his desk. Harry slipped in ahead of him and whispered as he sat down, "It's Harry. Please don't raise an alarm. Is there somewhere we can talk in private?"

Kingsley froze, but to his credit made no sound. "Can you prove your identity?" he whispered back.

"In my fifth year, when the Minister tried to arrest Dumbledore in his office for creating Dumbledore's Army and Fawkes carried him away, you said, 'Dumbledore's got style.' I always liked you for that."

Kingsley huffed a laugh that sounded slightly mournful. "Follow me," he murmured.

He led them straight out of the Aurors' office into a dim left-hand corridor. Harry suddenly had a premonition of where the Auror was going.

_Why is this place so obsessed with toilets?_

_Says the one who spent a solid month brewing Polyjuice in the girls' bathroom._

Sure enough, Kingsley pushed open a door with an out-of-order sign over the stick figure of a man.

"This bathroom is out of order!" the door insisted pompously as Harry entered, and he immediately saw why: all the latrines were cracked, some lying in pieces on the floor; stalls doors had been ripped from their hinges; several pipes had burst and were dripping forlornly onto the floor around their containment spells.

"Er," Harry said as he took off the Cloak.

"Disgruntled security troll," Kingsley explained. He gazed at Harry for a moment with concern obvious in his eyes. "What are you doing here, Harry? You must know how dangerous it is for you to be outside of your aunt and uncle's house."

"I do," Harry responded seriously. "But You-Know-Who will start acting more openly now that Dumbledore is dead, and lives are at stake. There is information I have to give to the Minister."

"Information entrusted to you by Dumbledore?"

"Some of it. Some that I learned on my own." He took a deep breath. "Would you believe me if I told you that I've seen the future? Or a version of it, anyway."

"You are a seer, then?"

"No precisely," Harry shook his head. "I've seen a seer make a true prediction, and it's not how I experience it."

Kingsley frowned. "Harry, visions are notoriously fickle and misleading things. Even with training they are not always easy to understand. And then there are those who can influence the minds of others, to manipulate their thoughts and warp their reality."

"Through Legilimency, you mean?" Harry deliberately held Kingsley's gaze. "I'm an Occlumens. You can test me, if you want."

He felt a light probe, a delicate touch designed to go no further than his surface thoughts. He turned them transparent as glass, reflected Kingsley back at himself. _I see you,_ he thought. _I feel admiration/esteem/regard for you, but you are you and I am me, and this is the boundary between us._

Kingsley's eyebrows rose. "An interesting approach," he commented. 

Harry shrugged. "It's what works for me." He thought quickly. He'd only had time to decide what he would say to Scrimgeour, Ron, and Hermione. Foolish of him not to be prepared, really. He trusted the intelligent, vastly competent, deeply principled man in front of him and wanted him on his side, if possible.

"All right. I'm going to tell you something about the past, the present, and the future. I know I won't be able to convince you completely, but I hope to be able to at least convince you enough to not reject my claims out of hand."

"Fair enough," Kingsley said in his deep, slow voice.

"You never wanted to be an Auror. You wanted to study painting, like your aunt. But your parents didn't think it was a suitable occupation for a scion of one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. So, being a dutiful son, you abandoned your artistic ambitions and applied to the Auror training program, from which, to your own surprise, you graduated with honors. But there is a private Wizarding space within your flat where you still paint, and where you are now working on a scene of Dumbledore during his battle with You-Know-Who at the Ministry. One day, when Minerva McGonagall becomes Headmistress of Hogwarts, your painting will hang outside the Transfiguration classroom at Hogwarts, and she will point it out to new staff as her favorite portrait of Dumbledore in the castle."

Kingsley's mouth was hanging slightly open. Harry thought that he'd never seen the future Minister look so gobsmacked, not even on that memorable occasion when they'd both gotten pissed after a long week at work and Harry had told him that he'd secretly bought Snape's house.

"Oh, and one other thing." Harry found that he was enjoying this more than he probably should. "That arranged marriage your parents suggested? Don't reject her too quickly. She can debate you to a standstill, defend herself against any two of your colleagues, loves Muggle football as much as you do—and she makes an amazing beef bourguignon."

He stopped before he could add in the part about how he had always envied how they had faced every adversity in their marriage together—to allow their differences to draw them together rather than apart.

Kingsley was silent for a long, long moment. Then he commented thoughtfully, "Either Dumbledore left you with a vast and very well-informed intelligence network, or..."

Harry waited. Kingsley was not the type to be pushed into a decision; he was always careful to take all available evidence into account—part of what made him a great Auror.

"Either way, it would be foolish of me to dismiss what you have to say out of hand. Is there anything I should know?"

Harry nodded. "You-Know-Who is working to bring the Ministry down from the inside. Yaxley is a Death Eater, and others from the Ministry either have already joined or will join the Death Eaters. They have a list of targets, both Muggle and Wizarding. Charity Burbage is at the top of the list, and she's going to die without help. That's part of why I need to see the Minister today."

"Charity Burbage—the Hogwarts professor?"

"Of Muggle Studies, yes. She recently wrote an opinion piece in the Daily Prophet exhorting people to judge each other by our actions and not our blood."

"Not a popular sentiment among a certain crowd at the moment."

Harry gave the Auror a sidelong glance. "I must say I've always liked your talent for understatement, Min—," he cut himself off abruptly. "Er, Auror Shacklebolt."

"Kingsley will do." He studied Harry curiously, neither believing nor disbelieving, reserving judgment until evidence convinced him otherwise. "Is there anything else you can tell me?"

Harry hesitated. He counted Kingsley as a friend, and someone he would trust with his life. But could he trust him with that of his best friends'? Or Snape's? There was also the question of how much this timeline diverged from his own. How did you judge what circumstances might change a person's entire character, when something like losing a game could make Cedric Diggory into a murderer?

"You-Know-Who can't be defeated by ordinary means, and he will remain undefeatable until I complete the mission that Dumbledore has given me. Don't go up against him, or let the Minister go up against him. There's a future in which You-Know-Who captures the Minister and tortures him to death." He paused for a moment in thought. "Be careful about using his name. He's made it taboo, or will, to identify those who defy him. 

Besides Yaxley, Wakefield and Godwin have the Mark. Reggs, Cummings, Runcorn, Corven, Johnson, Halley, and Verick are sympathizers. There are others, people drawn in by the idea of asserting Wizarding superiority over Muggles.

There are two people who play important roles in this war who are not what they seem. If you're ever in doubt, trust your instincts."

"That is...more than I expected," Kingsley admitted. "All but one of the Aurors you named were previously unsuspected, and two of them are on the Minister's security detail. Do you have any proof?"

Harry closed his eyes, thinking back to an Expandable File Cabinet which had eventually grown to the length of the entire wall along the Aurors' office. "Cummings...likes little girls. It's easy for him to abduct Muggle children and then send them home afterwards with their memories wiped. He also likes trophies. Pictures. Pieces of clothing. Hair. He has a secret flat. Council housing in Sheffield, at the end of Badger Lane. You'll be able to tell by the wards." The memory of blasting into the triple-warded flat and encountering the wall of photos, blood-spotted clothing, and other keepsakes made him feel sick all over again.

"Reggs will be much harder. He has a Pure-blood wife and two young sons. His family is an offshoot of the Burke family—his great-grandfather was disowned after gambling the family fortune away. He desperately wants to regain 'Sacred Twenty-Eight' status. But he won't tip his hand until he's sure of You-Know-Who's victory. You won't find anything in his record, either. Maybe a slight tendency to dismiss cases brought by Squibs, Half-bloods, and Muggle-borns; a bit too much deference towards the Pure-blood families—not more than you'll find in many Auror's records, though."

Kingsley winced. He spent a moment in thought, clearly noting the fact that Harry had pinpointed the two Aurors assigned to Scrimgeour's personal protection. "I shall look into it, thank you." He paused again, looking a little troubled. "We've never had the chance to get to know each other, Harry, but you seem different. Older."

Harry nodded. "There's a lot that depends on me. I have very little time."

"All right," Kingsley acknowledged in his calm voice. "The Minister should be just coming out of a meeting now. I was just going up to see him. If you put on your Cloak and follow closely behind me, I can take you past the intrusion detectors."

"Thank you," Harry said gratefully. As he swung the Cloak back over his head, he added, "Have you thought about this being a possible attack vector on the Minister?"

Kingsley eyed the empty spot beside him thoughtfully. "I'll mention it to his security team—the members I can be sure of." Then, as he opened the bathroom door for Harry: "Any interest in joining the Aurors after you graduate? You have the mind for it."

Harry chuckled quietly. "In a past life."

Rufus Scrimgeour was alone in his office when his secretary waved Kingsley past. Harry studied the lanky former Auror with his white-streaked lion's mane as he read through the topmost report in a stack of papers on his desk. As a teenager he'd seen only the man's projected strength, his absolute need to be in command of any situation, the way he was willing to use any means at his disposal to get his way. He'd felt the threat Scrimgeour presented to his own autonomy and bristled at it in the way of the young. ( _Oi!_ ) Now he noted the austerity of Scrimgeour's office, the lack of photos on his desk or personal effects on the walls, the permanent bruising a lack of sleep had left under his eyes.

In his previous life each of their meetings had ended acrimoniously, and yet Scrimgeour had shown true honor and courage by refusing to reveal Harry's location even as he was being tortured to death by Voldemort. As he had come to esteem Snape, so he had come to regard Scrimgeour with the respect he had refused him in life. He desperately hoped they could find common ground now.

Scrimgeour finished the report and looked up. "Ah, Shacklebolt. How does the Muggle Prime Minister?"

"No nervous breakdown this morning," Kingsley informed the Minister cheerfully. "I'm due back in fifteen minutes. He's scheduled to make a speech about Muggle currencies."

Scrimgeour's utter disinterest was clear as he waved Kingsley out. "Don't let me keep you, then. Williamson will spell you tonight."

Harry waited until the door was closed behind Kingsley before pulling off his Cloak. He would have preferred for Kingsley to stay, but he knew how busy the Auror was, and if this meeting went badly, it might not be to Kingsley's advantage to have their association be known.

"Hello, Minister," he said to the wand now pointed between his eyes, mildly impressed by Scrimgeour's immediate response to his unexpected appearance. "I apologize for sneaking in here, but we need to talk."

"Harry Potter," Scrimgeour said slowly. "What was the request you made of me during our last meeting?"

Harry blinked. "To free Stan Shunpike," he responded, and had to bite his tongue to keep from adding that this was not a secure method for ascertaining identity.

"How did you get in here?" was his next question.

"Invisibility Cloak," Harry answered. "I followed the Auror."

"And you happened to pick Shacklebolt out of the dozens of Aurors in the building right now. Not to mention the many other people who might have a reason to see me."

"He was at Dumbledore's funeral, and I saw him going up. Just lucky, I guess," Harry shrugged lightly.

Scrimgeour's eyes narrowed, but he didn't pursue the line of questioning. Instead he tapped a crystal block embedded into his desk with his wand and said into it, "Cancel my meetings for the afternoon, please." Harry sat opposite him at his invitation. The Minister nodded at a tray on the sideboard and asked courteously, "Tea?"

"Please," Harry replied, suddenly aware of how thirsty he was after the long trek over Muggle transportation and subsequent meeting with Kingsley. A beautiful gold-rimmed teapot of almost translucent creamy porcelain tilted over and poured into a matching cup, which floated along with a saucer into Harry's lap. "Thanks."

Scrimgeour waited until after Harry had taken a sip of the strong, steaming Darjeeling. "Have you rethought my proposal?"

"To be a mascot for the Ministry of Magic?" Harry answered, allowing his amusement to show through. "Would you agree to it, if you were in my place?"

Scrimgeour frowned. "I would agree to whatever was needed to help my country win this war."

"I want to help you win this war," Harry set down the empty cup on a corner of the Minister's desk and leaned forward. "But I can't do it with publicity stunts."

"Keeping law and order is not a stunt!"

Harry exhaled. He'd always had trouble reconciling what he knew of Scrimgeour's honor and the Minister's continuation of Fudge's policy of misleading the public. "This war cannot be won on lies, Minister. That is what You-Know-Who does. To properly fight him, you must win both on the magical battlefield and the moral one. There are many who would stand on your side, if you only told the truth."

Scrimgeour reared back as if slapped. "And a sixteen-year-old boy thinks he knows how to win this war, does he?"

_I'm seventeen soon!_

_Then he'd just say 'seventeen-year-old boy'. That makes it all better, does it?_

He gazed at the man in front of him in silence. Then he asked quietly, "Will you touch wands with me, Minister?"

"What?" The shock was plain to see on his face.

"The last time we met, there were questions you asked that I could not answer. If I gave you answers now, on what basis will you judge them? If we are to work together, we will need a modicum of trust between us. Since we do not have the time to establish that trust naturally, I am proposing that that we take a shortcut." He picked up his empty tea cup, holding it steady by an effort of will. "May I?"

Scrimgeour nodded. Harry could feel his gaze as he got to up to refill his cup at the sideboard. He kept his movements deliberately slow and methodical to give Scrimgeour time to ponder his proposal. There was a degree of intimacy to a touch of wands that made most people reluctant to partake in it, true, but neither was it particularly controversial. Some wizards were already able to get a sense of others' magic just by standing near them; this was just a surer method.

He drank, the rich tea still at the perfect temperature, and left the cup at the sideboard. When he turned back, the Minister stood up and drew his wand. "I must warn you that I have killed with my magic. There are things you will feel that will repulse you."

Harry nodded and drew his own, the beloved holly wood warm with welcome in his hand. "I'm prepared."

They stepped forward and touched the tips of their wands to each other. Immediately Harry's sense of the other man's magic sharpened to an almost painful extent. There was the metallic scent-taste of blood, as Scrimgeour had warned him. There was a sense of being ringed by walls, steel-tipped and immense, unyielding, unbending. There was an impression of huge reservoirs fueled by underground springs of resolve...and beneath that, shame and sorrow. No joy informed Scrimgeour's magic, no hope. Only purpose. Only duty.

It was hard to hold to that connection, but in the end it was Scrimgeour was broke away with a gasp. "You—" His wand was still in his hand, though it wavered minutely. "Who are you?" he demanded.

Harry deliberately tucked his away. "I am Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived," he responded. "The only person who can defeat the Dark Lord."

"You do not have a child's magic. How is that possible?"

"I have two souls, one of which lived a lifetime before this one," Harry answered promptly.

_I wasn't going to go there._

_Just wanted to see how he'd react._

The Minister stared at him for a long moment before returning his wand to its sheathe. "I don't know what to say to that," he admitted finally. "But I suppose the 'how' isn't really important. Your point is made: you are no ordinary sixteen-year-old boy. If you are not here because of my proposal, then why are you here?"

"Because I need your help to save lives," Harry answered. "I know the list of potential Death Eater targets. Charity Burbage is at the top of that list. I need you to send a protection detail out to her immediately—she lives on a Muggle street in London—Hogwarts has her address—and take her to a safe house or other safe location. She has a sister in Switzerland who will likely be willing to take her in for the time being."

Scrimgeour frowned in thought for a moment before nodding at his cloak. "You'd best get under that." 

As Harry did so, he added, "Get Robards, not Yaxley or Thicknesse. Yaxley's got the Mark, and Thicknesse may be under Imperius."

Scrimgeour stiffened. "We'll be speaking more on this," he warned Harry, before summoning Harry's old boss. 

The Minister issued his orders with impressive efficiency, though Harry knew he was acceding so easily to Harry's request because he was willing to risk sending Aurors out on a wild goose chase in order to test Harry's claims. He only hoped the Aurors made it in time.

Once Robards had left on his mission and Harry had emerged from beneath the cloak again, Scrimgeour moved to the center of his office and conjured a round table and two chairs. He gestured Harry into one while he took the other. "It would seem there is much we need to discuss, Mr. Potter."

Many hours later, Harry emerged from the shadows of the Ministry building tired but hopeful. Robards had returned from his mission to report that he and his partner had come upon two masked and hooded figures outside Charity's London flat, likely Death Eater wannabes, who had Apparated away as soon as they were spotted. Inside, they found the Hogwarts professor drugged and unconscious, possibly from some sort of potion mixed in with her half-eaten dinner. They had taken her to a Ministry safe house and summoned a trusted Healer while they contacted her sister. She would be taking an international Portkey to Switzerland tomorrow morning, assuming she felt no lingering effects from whatever she had ingested.

Maybe things could be changed for the better; maybe he truly could save lives.

And one other good thing had come out of his meeting with the Minister: he concentrated on the garden he'd spent so many hours weeding and Apparated from the spot.

Something huge and almost soundless came winging at him out of the darkness as soon as he Disapparated in the garden at Privet Drive, and Harry ducked instinctively before realizing: "Hedwig!"

He flung out his arm, and the beautiful snowy owl landed gently on his forearm. He brought her close to his face and breathed the warmth and night air from her feathers. "I glad you're home, girl. I've missed you."

She ran her beak affectionately through his hair as if to say she missed him too. And then a tiny nip on his ear to tell him that his uncle was a prat.

"No argument from me there," Harry agreed, laughing. "Come on, let's get some sleep."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On homosexuality in the Wizarding world:
>
>> The wizards don't give a damn - it's all about the magic for them.  
> \-- J.K. Rowling
> 
> <https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/508706921566969856>

He woke the next morning to loud laughter and shrieks of glee from downstairs, an event so out of the ordinary that he continued to lie in bed with his eyes closed, convinced he was still dreaming. Eventually, however, he managed to make out the words "shopping spree," "grand opening," "telly," and "winner," the last repeated multiple times in multiple voices with varying degrees of smugness. His eyes popped open, and he sprang out of bed as the front door slammed shut. But by the time he made it outside the Dursleys were already disappearing down the street in a plume of exhaust (Uncle Vernon hated taking the car to the mechanics even for something so simple as an oil change, claiming that they were all thieves and swindlers. Unfortunately, he himself never seemed to find the time to do the job.)

He dithered for a moment in the middle of the street in his baggy t-shirt and sleep trackies, torn between frustration, concern, amusement, and exasperation. Trust the Dursleys to put their lives on the line for a _shopping spree_. Should he go after them? That an event with a million-to-one chance of happening was a coincidence stretched credulity to the breaking point, and yet... How much danger were they in, really? The Death Eaters couldn't harm them directly, though of course the use of Dementors was always a possibility. On the other hand, there were three Aurors assigned to the Dursleys at all times (and another two to him...who would probably tie him to a lamppost were he to repeat yesterday's stunt). Besides, he very much doubted that any of the Death Eaters could have come up with a shopping spree as a ruse.

Eventually he mentally threw up his hands and wandered back into the house to make himself breakfast, his thoughts turning to the next item on his list. He urgently needed to visit 12 Grimmauld Place and ascertain the whereabouts of the locket. Then there was the non-trivial matter of its destruction or safekeeping. He absently took a sip of his tea and almost gagged.

_What is this, tea-flavored syrup?_

_What? I always put in three cubes of sugar—when there's sugar at all. That, though—that is disgusting._

He stared down at his egg and toast with its thick smear of ketchup.

_But I like ketchup._

_I don't. Aunt Petunia puts it in everything._

Harry buried his head in his hands. To be fair, there had been the span of two decades when he'd refused to touch the stuff. "All right, fine, a compromise." He filled his cup to the brim with new tea from the pot and scraped off most of the ketchup, spreading the rest in a thin layer on the toast. He placed the egg on top and brought it to his mouth. _Stop thinking about it._ He determinedly turned his thoughts back to more pressing problems than the shift in his taste and the odd conflicting reactions he was experiencing as a result, but the pop of Apparition interrupted him before he had come to any decisions. He felt his first layer of wards being breached and stood from the dining table, his wand in his hand. There was a touch on his second layer, and a familiar voice said, "Ow!"

"What?"

"It zapped me!"

"Someone must've put up more wards. Oi, Harry! You home? Let us in!"

Exasperation and amusement appeared to be the order of the day. Harry tucked his wand into his pocket, making a mental note to obtain a wand holster as soon as possible. He opened the front door to identical grins topped by flaming red hair.

"Hullo Fred. Hullo George."

_Merlin, Fred._

_Don't cry don't cry crying would look odd, don't cry._

He blinked away the wetness in his eyes. "Let me guess. The shopping spree was your idea?"

"Got it in one!" Fred said cheerfully as the twins pushed past him into the house.

_How do you know that was Fred?_

_His magic is different to George's. It's...hmm...foamier? Like an ocean wave. But also more tightly-held, like something radiating from his skin._

_Huh. Why couldn't I see that before?_

_Auror training wasn't a complete loss. And it's a skill I've honed over the years._

He flashed to a pair of old trainers in his closet, held together at the end by hope and magic many years beyond its natural lifespan. 

_What—_

_Not now._

He followed the twins into the sitting room and leaned against the entrance way as they poked and prodded, delightedly turning the telly on and off on again, changing channels so rapidly that he had to glance away before he became dizzy again. 

"I was in the middle of breakfast, you know," he remarked pointedly when no further explanation appeared to be forthcoming.

"Don't let us keep you, old boy," George waved a hand as he stuck his head up the ornamental fireplace.

Harry huffed a sigh and decided that whatever the twins were planning, he would be better prepared to handle it with some food in him. He finished the now-soggy toast in a few bites, determinedly telling himself that he liked ketchup, thank you very much, despite the association with Aunt Petunia. Then he gulped down the lukewarm, too-sweet tea and marched back into the sitting room with a feeling of doom.

"I think it's time for you two to tell me—" 

And stopped, because the twins were nowhere to be seen. Instead, Ginny was seated on Uncle Vernon's favorite armchair, looking around with interest but as nervous as he'd ever seen her.

"Harry!" 

"What—" was all he could think to say as she stood and drew him into a hug. Her flowery scent, the one she'd stopped wearing after they'd gotten married because it was too 'girly,' hit him with a nostalgia so surreal that he only belatedly raised his arms to hug her back after she had already drawn away with a look of concern.

"I'm sorry, I was the one who asked Fred and George to get those nasty Muggles out of here for the day. So much has happened, I can't believe they would just leave you here on your own! And besides," she added with a mischievous grin that made a part of him melt inside, "I missed you."

"I..." he choked back the expected response. Had he missed her? Or had he missed the idea of her, when his dream of the perfect family had fallen apart/when he knew that he could not go back to Hogwarts for his seventh year with this beautiful girl by his side? Should he have tried harder to save their marriage/not have broken up with her due to some fanciful idea of nobility? He'd thought he had known the answer, once. Here and now, confounded by two sets of memories and her closeness, he found that he could not say.

"I can't believe you're here," he finished lamely instead, and her face fell a little. "Um, how did Fred and George manage it, by the way?"

"They overheard Shacklebolt discussing security measures on this house with our dad, that day they brought you back. He mentioned that the fireplace could be connected to the Floo Network from the inside."

He should have known that, of course. Would have thought of it if given a little time and space. He'd been busy, after all. Right.

He took a moment to consider what implications this had for the safety of the Dursleys and his own. If Death Eaters got into the house, he was likely already done-for, and the Dursleys were definitely SOL. On the other hand, it was another possible route for escape, so long as the Ministry stood. He filed it under 'not useful now; check again in case of emergency.'

"Harry?" Ginny said worriedly when he'd remained silent for too long.

"Sorry, I think I'm still half-asleep," he smiled at her. "Er, do you mind if I go get cleaned up? I'll be a much better host once I get a change of clothes, I promise."

She glanced at his over-sized t-shirt and looked away again, blushing a little. "It's all right, I'll just wait here, shall I?"

He turned on the telly and showed her how to operate the remote before heading back upstairs.

_Merlin, what do I even tell her? This didn't happen in my time._

_My Ginny "didn't like it" a lot more than yours did, I guess._

_I wonder what changed?_

He shampooed his hair absently. _Do you regret the divorce?_

_You can see my memories; don't you already know the answer?_

_I'm not sure you know the answer._

_Then why are you asking?_

_So I can put off thinking about what to say to Ginny a little longer._

_There are easier ways._ He started humming the catchy jingle from an advert the Dursleys had been watching as he'd gotten home last night.

"Stop it," he muttered under his breath after the third or fourth repetition. _That's not at all better._ He stuck his head under the stream of water and closed his eyes. _What was that thing about the shoes?_

_Shoes?_

_In your closet. You were thinking about them earlier._

_I don't want to think about them now. Think about Ginny._

Harry sighed as he toweled his hair. _Would you marry her again, knowing what you know now?_

_It was so easy. Everything was so easy with her. It was what everyone expected, what everyone wanted. Everything just fell into place. And I wanted that, after Voldemort. One precious thing I didn't have to fight for._

_You had the family you—I—always wanted._

_Yes._

_But?_

_I didn't realize that marriage was something I needed to work at. That it was something that would require everything I put into defeating Voldemort, and more, and forever. That if she was bending over backwards to keep me happy, then I was failing my end of the bargain. And I did fail. I failed very, very badly._

His other self didn't seem to have any response to that.

_I think I was too young to know what I wanted, really. Except that it would look nothing like the Dursleys._

He stacked soap and shampoo into his small shower caddy and wrapped the towel around his waist. 

_Living in a riverboat on the Rio Grande would look nothing like the Dursleys._

He huffed a small "hah." _True..._

"Ginny!"

His musings came to a screeching halt when he found Ginny sitting at his desk stroking Hedwig. Her eyes flashed to his bare chest and the towel around his waist, but she stood with a determined look. Hedwig fluttered to the window sill to look longingly outside. Ginny took the shower caddy out of his hand, sitting it down on the desk before taking his hand in both of hers. "Harry, there's something we need to discuss. It's important."

"Er."

She pulled him to a seat next to her on the bed. "I know you're not going back to Hogwarts this year. I want to come with you."

"You—" he gaped at her.

"Ron told me. I mean, I basically forced him to. I saw him sneaking his clothes up to the ghoul in our attic."

"No."

"No, what?"

"No, I'm not taking you with me."

"What, just like that?"

"Just like that."

"Why not? You're not that much older than me."

"This is not a debate."

Her eyes flashed, then softened. She laid her head against his shoulder, her bright silky hair trailing down his chest. "I know you want to protect me, but I can take care of myself. And I know I can help you. Whatever you're facing, we can face it together."

He sighed and gently stroked her hair. "You're brilliant, Ginny. I hope you know that. You're going to make someone very happy one day, if that's what you want."

She drew away from him. "I don't want to be broken up." There were tears in her eyes. "Even if you won't take me with you, I'll wait for you."

"Please don't." He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "I don't want to resume our relationship. I'm sorry."

She looked stunned, shattered. The tears were now flowing freely down her face. "Why isn't this hurting you like it's hurting me? Did you ever love me?"

He'd had time—time enough, it seemed. The divorce had ached in him for so long, like a scabbed-over wound he thought would never fully heal. But he was realizing now that time had worked its magic without him noticing, and he _had_ healed, bit by bit. He was heart-whole, and it was a wonderfully light, freeing realization.

"I did love you and I do, but I was never sure how much of my love for you was as a sister and friend, and how much as my wi—girlfriend. Now I do know, and that's why I know I shouldn't be in a relationship with you."

"Is it Cho? Are you still in love with her?"

It took him a moment to process the question, so long ago did his crush on Cho seem to both of his selves. "No, I'm not in love with Cho."

She wiped at her eyes. "You know, my other boyfriends were always touching and kissing me, and you almost never initiated. And Cho said Cedric's really affectionate with her in private, too..."

He blinked. "Okay...?"

"I mean, I guess some people go through this phase. If that's what it is, just tell me. I've loved you my whole life. I wouldn't mind if you needed to try some things, if you came back to me in the end."

"Erg..." He felt like his brain was experiencing whiplash. "Thank you for loving me. But Gin, it doesn't really work like that. Being gay—at least I think that's what you're implying—or any sexual orientation, really—it's not something you can just change at will."

"Well, maybe not for Muggles. And being raised by Muggles, I can see why you'd think that. But it's different for wizards."

Merlin, teenagers. And Wizarding prejudices. And while he was at it, Muggle prejudices. At least there were Muggles actively trying to change their society for the better. He really needed Hermione to be Minister for Magic right bloody now.

"Wizards are just people, in the end."

"But no wizard _stays_ gay. Otherwise how would he pass his magic onto the next generation?"

Harry wasn't sure whether he wanted to laugh, scream, or swear just then. "What about Albus Dumbledore? He never had a wife or children."

Ginny frowned. "I can't believe you, of all people, would believe those stupid rumors. Albus Dumbledore wasn't gay, he was powerful and good and one-of-a-kind. No one would ever question his contributions to the Wizarding world—at least in polite society."

He rubbed at his scar, feeling a headache coming on. What could he even say to that? _"So any witch or wizard who doesn't breed for the Wizarding world is a waste of magic and evil by definition." "You know something that's exactly the same between the Wizarding and Muggle worlds? Power allows you to break all the rules, apparently—especially the unspoken ones." "Muggles in this part of the world got over this forced invisibility of non-conformist sexual orientations decades ago."_

He'd forgotten he would have to live through this ignominious portion of history again. _Dear Death: if you were lying about me being able to save people, I will BURN your millennial budget._ Then he wondered what the world would look like for the marginalized peoples of both the Wizarding and Muggle worlds under Voldemort's thumb, and shuddered.

He mentally tossed the (100% useless) retort. Ginny didn't deserve his sarcasm or his anger, not really. "You know, whenever I hear the words 'polite society,' I think of Aunt Petunia sitting around with her friends politely gossiping about their neighbors. 'The Calloway boy got an earring—he must have joined a gang!' 'Did you see Anna when she came home from London this Christmas? Still single and her hair dyed that shocking pink color! She'll be attracting all the wrong sorts, you mark my words.' 'We had some foreigners moving in next door, and now the whole house smells like curry. I don't know what's happening to the neighborhood, I really don't.'

Ginny giggled at his falsetto impersonation of the women in his aunt's circle. He held out his hand. Confused, she took it. "Give me a mo to get dressed. Then I'll give you a tour of the house, if you want. And I need to ask you for a favor."

It was almost noon by the time Ginny Floo'd back to the Burrow, and he was hungry again. The Dursleys weren't back yet (where _had_ the twins sent them off to, anyway?) He opened the fridge and ran through his usual checklist. Would the Dursleys miss a small piece of the steak? It was a whole cut, so probably. Aunt Petunia didn't keep a count of the oranges anymore, he didn't think. He grabbed one. It was a lot harder to find something he could eat now that the fridge was mostly filled with Dudley's energy drinks.

 _Wait, stop. I am not doing this again._ He reached for the steak and took out the entire piece. His heart rate had sped up; it was hard to overcome years of conditioning. But a fear that he could trace to its proper source was a fear that he could overcome. He put Petunia's best copper-bottomed pan on the stove, turned the flame to high, and set about grilling his lunch.

His culinary skills were rusty ( _that's an understatement_ ) after years of being pampered by house-elf cooking, but he decided that it was the best damn steak he'd ever had: it tasted of (incredibly chewy) victory.

Pounding on his door and Uncle Vernon's shouting dragged him out of a sound sleep. He groggily opened his eyes to see that it was dark outside. The Dursleys were finally back, then. At least Hedwig no longer had to live with his uncle's nonsense, even if he still did. He threw up an Auror-grade silencing charm and a Muggle-grade no-entry ward and went back to sleep.

_I slept for sixteen hours yesterday._

_Hmm._

_Cause for concern?_

_One body, two souls—one of which recently came back from the dead a second time. I'd say...not yet._

_Also, I'm hungry again._

He snorted. _I'm guessing Uncle Vernon found his steak missing last night. It was rude, but also—_ He mentally shrugged. _I think it's time to hash out the food situation, though. A mouse's diet is not going to work if I need to do serious magic._

He found Aunt Petunia sitting alone at the kitchen table, laboriously shelling fresh walnuts for her Dudleykins. Her lips thinned as she spotted him. "You're late! We finished breakfast a hour ago, and there's none left."

"That's all right. I'll make my own."

"You—you think you can just waltz in here after sleeping the morning away—after skipping your chores for the past week—and take our food?"

Harry resolutely clamped down on the niggling sense of guilt and shut the fridge door. He straightened, sighing. _I guess we're doing this now._

"Aunt Petunia. Why don't we set the record straight? As guardian of my vault—that is, legal executor of my financial affairs until I am of age, Albus Dumbledore has been sending you a monthly stipend"—as Petunia opened her mouth, he amended, "a _very_ generous monthly stipend for my care. Interestingly enough, said stipend does not magically appear as a pile of notes on your mantel every month, as would be perfectly within the capabilities of such a great wizard, but is sent via Muggle check through the Muggle post care of the very mundane Gots & Grint Private Bank, a subsidiary of the not-so-mundane Gringotts Wizarding Bank. What this means, other than preventing a meltdown from Uncle Vernon every month, is that there is a paper trail of the money expected to be set aside for my benefit. Which you and I and everyone on this street know has not been used for that purpose. So if the Muggle authorities were ever to get involved, you would know precisely how normal people—that is, fine upstanding Muggles like you but with functioning consciences—would view the way you've treated me."

"You think you can threaten me in my own home? After all the years we've let you live in this house—" her voice was shrill with anger.

"The correct response is to kick me out," Harry cut her off coldly. "But you're too afraid to do that, aren't you? You know that you'll be vulnerable as soon as I leave. Unlike Uncle Vernon, you can imagine the sorts of horrors the Dark Lord is capable of."

Petunia's face was white as she stared at him tight-lipped.

"So let's come to an agreement. I won't demand a full accounting of how the money was spent, as is my right. In exchange, you'll double the amount of groceries for the household while I am here, and I'll take half. Don't worry about Dudley sneaking food—I'll make sure he won't be able to touch it. I don't expect you to cook or clean for me—I'm perfectly capable of doing those things for myself. But I do not have the time or energy to be your servant anymore, so you'll have to take that into consideration. That is all. Take it or leave it."

"And if I don't accept your terms?"

"Then I'll go this afternoon, and you can be rid of me for good."

"You spiteful child, you'd leave us at the mercy of that madman?"

"The whole world is in danger from that madman, Aunt. So many people don't even have the choice that I'm giving you, of being perfectly safe for at least a few more days. We're fighting a war, and people have already died. So tell me again you think you can hold me hostage to my own good intentions."

She took one shallow breath and another, then spat, "Fine."

"Fine. I should also tell you: the Ministry has given me special dispensation to use my magic at my discretion. That includes defending myself from abuse from anyone in this house, verbal or physical." He deliberately turned his back on her to open the fridge again, his hand tight against the handle to hide its trembling. His stomach was in knots, and he had completely lost his appetite.

_I dreamed of telling her off for so long. I thought it would feel good, but it just feels empty, and sad. I said everything perfectly, so why?_

_Because it's a death, in a way. Because this is an acknowledgment that she could never be to me what I wanted her to be, no matter how perfectly I asked._

_That's not fair._

_No. But family doesn't start or end with blood. And there are people who love me. They are my family—the family I will die to protect._ His hands stopped shaking. He took out eggs, bread, sausages, mushrooms, and the packet of bacon hidden behind a bag of carrots for a proper fry-up. _No ketchup today, I think._


	5. Chapter 5

Harry spoke to his Auror sentinels after breakfast before Apparating to Grimmauld Place. He Disapparated on the top step, the sight of the intimidating black door with its snake's-head knocker bringing to mind the many, many time he had done this the last time with Hermione and Ron. For a moment he felt very much alone. 

He tapped the door open with his wand and stepped inside. "Severus Snape?" asked Moody's voice, and a bolt of something indescribable and sharp shot through him at the name. He was immediately assailed with a chill, musty wind and the translucent image of Albus Dumbledore bearing down on him. He touched his wand to repel the Tongue-Tying Curse and commented to it conversationally before it could start on its accusations, "You know that you're useless even against the person who did kill you, right?" It disappeared with a dismal moan.

He went down to the kitchen, breathing deeply to calm his quickened pulse. "Kreacher," he called into thin air. A moment later Kreacher appeared in the empty fireplace with a loud _crack_.

"Master," he muttered, somehow making even his low bow look contemptuous. "The friend of blood-traitors and Mudbloods back again in my Mistress' house—"

"Hullo Kreacher," he said, smiling helpless at the sight and realizing that he had missed the grouchy old elf who had kept him from either starving to death or smothered under the weight of his unwashed clothes during his depressive episode after the war. "Let's sit down, shall we?"

Kreacher clambered onto a chair at the kitchen table at his gesture, and Harry took the seat next to him. He pulled the locket out of his pocket and placed it on the table between them. Kreacher made an abortive grab for it, only stopping himself by smashing his head against the table.

Harry winced. "It's all right, you can pick it up," he soothed.

Kreacher did so, cradling the metal against his chest as if it were a small living thing.

"Do you know what that is?" Harry prompted.

"Master Regulus' locket," Kreacher croaked, one hand stroking the engraved surface.

"Regulus took something of the Dark Lord's, didn't he, and put that in its place?"

"Yes," Kreacher whispered. "In the cave. Oh, horrible, horrible place!"

"I know what happened to Regulus in that cave, Kreacher. He was a good master to you, and he was very brave. Do you still have the locket he gave you to destroy?— _I command you not to hurt yourself!_ "

Kreacher froze in the act of diving for the fire poker and fell with a thump to the floor. "Kreacher failed, and then he took it!" he wailed. "Mundungus Fletcher, the thief! He stole it from Kreacher, and laughed, and Kreacher could not stop him because the locket did not belong to Master."

"I command you not to hurt yourself!" Harry repeated, as Kreacher twitched toward the fireplace again. "All right. I'm going to finish what Regulus started. I want to you find Mundungus Fletcher and bring him here to Grimmauld Place. Can you do that for me? But first go to Hogwarts and ask Dobby to help you. Tell him it's for me. If you find Mundungus, and I'm not here, lock him in the subbasement and come to me wherever I am. If you don't find him within three days, or if for some reason you can't get to him, I forbid you to punish yourself! Just come to me and tell me."

"Kreacher will find the thief, Master," the elf vowed, clambering to his feet with new purpose.

Harry stood and picked up Regulus' locket, bending to place it in Kreacher's hands. "This is yours now. You served Regulus loyally and well, and he would have wanted you to have this."

Kreacher immediately dropped to the floor again. Harry folded himself down next to the elf and patted Kreacher's thin shoulder until he stopped howling and his sobs had calmed into the occasional hiccup. "On second thought, I'll get take-out and we'll eat lunch before we go."

After lunch he wandered upstairs into Sirius' room, smiling at his decorations on the walls and the four tiny figures of the Marauders in their frame. His gaze roved over the scattering of objects on the floor, and he bent to pick up the old letter his mother had written Sirius, then the ripped picture of himself with his dad. He touched the torn edge sadly. So Snape had already been here. Was it odd to feel disappointed that while his entire understanding of Snape had changed, Snape's view of him hadn't? Logically he knew that it couldn't have, and yet... He shook his head. He didn't have the time to be maudlin. He had miles to go before he slept.

It was mid-afternoon by the time he arrived at Heathgate, in front of a brown-painted house with a teeming garden. He recognized aconite, dittany, and knotgrass among the more ordinary plants and bushes, and smiled. Trust Hermione to make the most of her resources. He took a deep breath and went up to the front door, but instead of ringing the doorbell, he took out the mobile he had purchased that afternoon, banished the shield around it, rang the house.

"Hello?" said Hermione's voice.

"It's Harry. I'm outside in my Invisibility Cloak. I need to speak with you."

"You're _outside_?" Hermione's voice squeaked on the last word, followed swiftly by, "I'll be right there."

Harry shut off the mobile and renewed the shield around it before sliding it back into his pocket. A few seconds later the front door opened, and he stepped inside.

Hermione closed the door behind him and muttered, "Don't take the Cloak off yet. Follow me."

She led him straight to her bedroom, a comfortable space lined with missionary-style bookshelves of a light varnished wood with matching dresser, desk, and bed with a headboard fitted with even more shelves. When she closed the door, her wards rippled shut, and he smiled to feel their protective embrace. They would grow in complexity and power as her magic matured through the years, but here and now their strength was already a compelling demonstration of how far she would go.

He pulled the Cloak off and caught Hermione in a tight hug. She squeezed back and buried her face against his neck, holding him long and hard. "Harry," she finally said, "what are you doing here? You know how dangerous it is for you to be away from your aunt and uncle's house."

He followed her lead and sat cross-legged on her bed, facing her. "Yeah, Scrimgeour said the same thing when I went to visit him."

"The Minister for Magic? Why...?"

"He has two Aurors assigned to me, and there are now two watching over your house. That'll give us some measure of safety—for now, at least."

"Harry..." She shook her head as if trying to jostle the most urgent of her questions to the top.

"Wait." He knew enough to forestall her before she got started. "I'll explain, but you have to promise not to interrupt me, okay? I don't want to leave out something important."

At her nod, he began by describing the day he'd woken up drenched in sweat to find himself split into two Harrys. He'd decided that to Hermione, wise and loyal and true, the brightest witch of her generation, whom he had proudly served as Minister for Magic, he would entrust the entire truth as he knew it.

She stared at him for a long moment after he had finished, eyes wide. "Harry," she said softly, "that-that sounds—"

"Mad, yeah." He gave her a wry smile. "But how is that any different from my usual state?"

She huffed her agreement. "Are you sure they weren't just prophetic dreams, visions of the future?"

"I thought you said Divination was a woolly discipline?"

"That doesn't mean I don't think seers exist. But two souls, Harry?"

Trust her to go for the important things. "Think of it as a metaphor, if you want. Two sets of memories, two selves."

"Then what is Death a metaphor for?"

"Hope? A second chance?" he shrugged helplessly, giving her a lopsided smile.

"Oh Harry." She hugged him, and he exhaled into the tight curls of her hair. Merlin, he'd missed this.

"All right, time for a practical demonstration," he announced once they'd parted again. He took two mobiles out of his pocket and laid them down on the bed between them.

"Is that what you called me from?"

"Yeah."

"But—"

"Magic doesn't mix with technology?" He pulled his wand awkwardly out of his back pocket (he really needed that holster) and waved it over the two phones in a series of intricate patterns. 

When he was done, he pointed his wand at the mobile on the right and said, "Call Hermione Granger." It quickly beeped through the numbers, and the other mobile lighted up and rang.

Hermione picked it up cautiously and pressed the "Answer call" button. "Hello?"

"Eureka," Harry voice came from two different sources, like a distorted echo.

Hermione laughed. "That's amazing! I can't believe—I didn't recognize half the charms you used."

Harry forbore to mention that most of them had been invented by Rose and Hugo, her children in another lifetime. "Magic doesn't mix with technology because magical energy has a disruptive effect on the free flow of electrons, which of course means that gadgets that rely on electricity become unstable in the presence of magic. But it is possible to shield circuits so that only certain portions are exposed to magic—an interface, if you will."

"Huh." Her eyes took on a faraway look, and he knew she was thinking of all the knowledge she could gain if only she had access to the Internet. Then she refocused on his face intently. "Harry, if you've seen the future, does that mean you know where the Horcruxes are?"

"Yes," he said simply.

She immediately jumped off the bed and summoned her beaded bag to her hand. "Then what are we waiting for?"

"Hermione..." he'd rehearsed this part in his mind a dozen times, but still found himself choking on the words. "I can't take you. That's not why I'm here."

"What?"

He slipped off the bed and stood facing her. "Think about it, Hermione. In my other life, I was a grown man. An adult. A retired Auror. What kind of man would I be if I took a teenager with me into that kind of danger?"

" _I_ am an adult, Harry James Potter," she retorted fiercely. "I can make my own decisions about what kind of danger I'm ready to face."

He stood his ground. "Not this time."

"Dumbledore—"

"Dumbledore was ready to sacrifice all of us to the cause of defeating You-Know-Who. He may have wept at the necessity, but he still did it. And as much as I loved the man, right now I'd like to punch him in the face for bringing you and Ron into this."

"It was always our choice. Don't take that away from us."

Harry sighed and slumped back on the bed. "I'm not questioning your honor, your commitment, your courage. Your love for me. You have all of that in spades, both of you. If there was any justice in the world, you'd be the hero of this story, the one who kicks Lord Thingy's scaly arse to the ninth circle of hell. I'm just the dumb kid Dumbledore led around by the nose." _A pig to the slaughter._

Hermione sat down beside him, staring at the bag in her lap. The hours of painfully meticulous preparation, of planning for every imaginable contingency.

"In my other life I would have flat-out failed without you. But this time around I know what to do. If you were in my place, knowing what I know, would your conscience allow you to take me along?"

Her lips trembled as she clutched the bag tight. "I was going to put a False Memory Charm on my parents and send them to Australia."

He laid a hand on hers. "Do that. They'll be safe there. But go with them, please? If the Ministry falls..."

"The Ministry?" She turned startled tear-bright eyes to his face.

"I'm trying to prevent it. But it may still happen. If it does, the life of every Muggle-born and their families will be in danger."

"And you're saying I should just-just abandon everyone and save myself?"

"Live to fight another day. There's no shame in that. You have so much more to learn, to do, to grow. Merlin, Hermione, seventeen is so _young_."

"Ugh," Hermione half-sobbed, half-laughed. "When you say things like that, I can totally believe you're an old man on the inside."

Harry placed a quick kiss on her hair and drew out the old planner. "Here. I've written out the key points of the war with the Dark Lord in my time. You're the only one who'll be able to read this, but some of the pages won't open until certain things happen. The entire back half will only open w—if I die."

Her breath caught as she accepted the planner. "Harry..."

"I'm sorry. There are things I can't tell you, not yet. There is a reason I'm the one who has to fight this fight. I hate doling out bits and pieces of information like this, like Dumbledore did to me, but...at least you'll always have a choice. Promise me you won't try to undo my binding charms?"

"I hate you, Harry Potter," she growled, then belied her own words by pulling him into another hug. 

"I love you, Hermione Granger. I probably won't make it to Bill and Fleur's wedding, so I apologize beforehand. I need to be ready in case something happens."

Hermione humphed. "You were supposed to be my date."

"Alas, needs must," Harry returned with an easy grin. "Keep the phone on you. Call me if you need me. I got you some phone cards, too, in case you need to call from outside the UK. I don't know if the pairing charms will hold up at that distance, but the others will."

Hermione gave him an impish smile. "It's nice to know you grow up to be a responsible adult."

"I had good role models," he smiled back. "Stay safe, all right?"

The smile faded from Harry's face as he Apparated from Heathgate and reappeared at Privet Drive. Was his planner what had set Hermione on the road to becoming the rebel warrior in that dark world Scorpius Malfoy had visited— _this_ world? If so, should he have withheld the knowledge, tried harder to convince her to leave the country with her parents? But then again, would there be any place of safety in the world if Voldemort gained ascendancy?

He shook away the gnawing doubts, determinedly focusing on the here-and-now and his next steps. Dinner and bed. Keeping body and two souls together was getting to be a pain in the arse.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your comments and kudos—they are very much appreciated!

Harry awoke to lancinating hunger before the sun had even made an appearance in the sky. He groaned and threw an arm over his face.

_I'm beginning to think this is a bit more serious than a metaphysical hangover._

_Ugh. Words too big. Can't think. Need food._

He turned over and blinked twice at the clock on his dresser before he realized that the time read 8:34 AM, though his room was still dark. Outside, thunderclouds roiled ominously downward. He sighed and leveraged himself upright.

 _I'm slightly ashamed to admit this, but I can't wait until I get to taste Kreacher's cooking again._

_Stop thinking. Food first._

_I feel like I'm the superego talking to my id._

_Shut up. Freud was a fraud._

He huffed a laugh. His Psych professor had had _opinions_. Apparently his other self had picked up on those memories.

The kitchen was empty. He absent-mindedly opened the fridge and abruptly remembered why he'd ordered take-out last night. The fridge was filled with nothing but energy drinks and carrots, which his aunt knew he hated. The pantry was empty except for a twenty-five pound bag of oatmeal. That was all his aunt had purchased yesterday: carrots and oatmeal. He didn't even know where someone could go to get a twenty-five pound bag of oatmeal around here. 

_Looks like it's oatmeal or..._

_Pancakes._

_Now I really miss Kreacher. He made the best pancakes._

And then he remembered there were no eggs. Or flour.

_Let's leave. Right now._

He set a pot to boiling on the stove.

_Can't._

_She broke her side of the bargain._

_Technically not._

_Get take-out then._

_Once or twice was okay. A predictable habit is a security risk._

_I'm not eating oatmeal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day for four days._

_Don't worry, we won't. Merlin, dealing with people who act in bad faith is so exhausting._

_Dealing with Aunt Petunia is worse._

There were no fruits (somehow the Dursley household had managed to consume ten oranges in a single day yesterday), milk, or cream, but a sprinkling of sugar at least made the bare meal (and his mood) somewhat less grim. 

There was a knock on the door as soon as he had finished washing pot, bowl, and spoon. It was nine exactly. He opened it to find one of his Auror sentinels outside, a gruff old veteran of the force who must've been a contemporary of Moody's, though somewhat less scarred. He had short-cropped, iron-streaked chestnut hair, a square face with a square jaw, and a slight bow-leggedness to his stance, the overall effect of which made him resemble a bulldog. Harry tensed. "Yes?"

"Scrimgeour wants a word." His voice was a rough baritone, further enhancing the bulldog image.

"Your name, sir?"

"Lawrence O'Malley."

"Pleased to meet you, Auror O'Malley," Harry said quietly, suppressing a shiver as he suddenly recalled where he'd seen that name before: filed in the drawer labeled "Aurors, Deceased (killed in the line of duty)." He took a deep breath to wrap calm around himself. "Will you be accompanying me?"

The Auror shook his head. "Minister says you're to Apparate straight into the Foreign Office sitting room. I'll let him know you're coming."

The Foreign Office sitting room was the one place open to Apparition within the Ministry building besides the public fireplaces, usually used for strictly pre-arranged visits by foreign dignitaries from countries with whom they were on friendly terms. Scrimgeour was taking no chances with his safety.

The Auror gave him a questioning look. "I gather you know where that is."

Harry's eyebrows rose. He and the Minister had not discussed how future meetings between them would take place. So this doubled as another test, then. "I know where it is."

For the sake of expediency, he touched his wand and silently cast a breath-freshening charm, then changed his clothes to something more suitable for a meeting with the Minister for Magic, though his crows'-nest hair he could do nothing about. It was the Auror's turn to give him a considering, raised-eyebrow look as he followed Harry into the garden. Harry nodded at him before he turned on the spot and disappeared just as the first fat drops of a summer thunderstorm came pelting down.

Scrimgeour was waiting alone in the Foreign Office sitting room when Harry arrived. He tilted his head silently at the fireplace, and Harry followed him through the restricted intra-departmental network into the Minister's office.

"Thank you for coming."

They sat down together at the round conference table, already prepared this time with chairs and a tea service for two. As Scrimgeour served them both, Harry remarked, "There hasn't been anything on the Muggle news about large-scale accidents or disasters, so I assume that's good news."

Scrimgeour sat and frowned at his clasped hands, not touching his tea. "We've apprehended more than a dozen perpetrators at the sites on your list—most of them young, some operating under Imperius."

"But there's no doubt...?"

"They were caught in various criminal acts, and most of them confessed under questioning. However, not one of them had the Mark."

Harry sighed. "Initiation rituals."

"Very likely. I also begin to suspect a spy. In one case of Imperius, none of the wands present had cast the spell."

It was Harry's turn to frown thoughtfully. "You've had the people on the list watched?"

Scrimgeour nodded. "Yes. And their communications monitored. All operations were led by Aurors I trust personally, and no one on the list was informed beforehand. And yet the evidence points to Death Eaters getting cleanly away in every instance." The Minister leaned forward. "So I must ask you, Harry, to think very carefully about whether there may have been names that you missed."

Scrimgeour was not accusing him, not yet. But there were names he had left off. Cedric Diggory's, for one. Was Cedric truly a Death Eater? How far down that road had he traveled? Could he still be convinced to turn back?

After a moment of silence, Scrimgeour prompted, "A Witch Watcher, Hestia Jones, is missing. Perhaps...?"

A chill ran down Harry's spine. "No. Hestia is a member of the Order of the Phoenix."

"Albus Dumbledore's secret organization."

"Established to fight the Dark Lord because the Ministry did nothing to stop him until it was too late the last time around. And no, I will not reveal their names."

Scrimgeour's face hardened. "I cannot win a war against the most powerful dark wizard in history with my chain-of-command compromised."

"Albus Dumbledore is dead, Minister. There is no one to compromise your chain-of-command now." 

Scrimgeour gave Harry a pointed look. "I doubt that very much."

"You think _I_...?" Harry started incredulously. Then finished: "You think that I'm the new leader of the Order, and that I had something to do with Hestia's disappearance."

"Aren't you? Didn't you?" 

"I am not. I did not." Harry stated firmly. "You're looking in the wrong place, Minister."

"Her current mission is to watch over Lucius Malfoy's mansion for suspicious comings and goings. Her last report, at noon yesterday, indicated that she had found nothing of note."

Harry slumped down in his chair and put a hand over his face. "Was she alone?"

"Her partner is Peter Marbey of the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol. He reported her missing when she didn't show up for their shift this morning."

"Recall him. Isolate him for suspected Imperius and question him under Veritaserum." 

"What aren't you telling me?" There was ice in Scrimgeour's voice.

Harry exhaled and looked up. "Lucius Malfoy is in the Dark Lord's inner circle. His mansion is very likely the Death Eaters' base of operations."

Scrimgeour's fists meeting the table made the tea cups jump a quarter-inch into the air. "How dare you keep this information from me?"

Harry swallowed back the heated retort, the urge to meet fire with fire. "Because if you go out to fight...Voldemort, you're not going to make it back alive. And you wouldn't have believed me if I told you that. You don't believe me now."

"Give me a reason to."

Harry shook his head. "I can't tell you why I'm the only one who can take him down. If everything I've confided in you has not convinced you to trust me, then there's nothing more I can do."

"Trust you, when you withhold essential facts from me? I am the Minister for Magic, Mr. Potter. I can detain you for non-cooperation with an ongoing investigation."

"You could," Harry agreed slowly, his fingers twisting around the porcelain tea cup, knowing he was losing Scrimgeour, might have already lost him. "But how would that look? You would split the Wizarding World right apart and make us even easier prey for Voldemort."

"Shall I simply abandon Jones, then? Leave her to be tortured and killed?" 

When Harry didn't reply, Scrimgeour added bitterly, "You come here with grandiose ideas of saving people, but these are the kinds of decisions I have to make—that I have to pay for. A Watcher's blood on my hands against the word of the Chosen One. If you have nothing more to tell me, then get out."

Harry stood in the garden at 4 Privet Drive, his face turned up to the rain rushing down in twisting sheets. There was one person who might know what had happened to Hestia, but he had no way of contacting him without risk of exposure. Hestia's blood on his hands against the fall of the Ministry, or against _his_ life. He had made these kinds of decisions before, and so had Hermione. They had paid in days-long hangovers and sitting by the toilet retching until only bile came up; in arguments with spouses and loved ones that had lasted days, then weeks, then months; in self-recrimination, self-disgust, self-isolation, numbness; in the kind of loneliness that went soul-deep. 

Harry clenched his hands. He would save as many people as he could—wasn't that what he had promised himself? He had to try.

He automatically cast a drying spell on himself as he stepped inside, then tore up the stairs and wrenched open his trunk. The round tin can he sought was lying on top of his Sixth Year books, precisely where he'd left it after Ginny had given it to him with an entreaty to visit if he could. He blessed her now for her foresight.

Downstairs, he lifted his wards from the ornamental fireplace and threw in a pinch of Floo powder. "The Burrow!" he cried, and vanished in a blaze of green flame.

He stepped into the Weasleys' sitting room to two identical startled looks. "Harry!" "Harry!" 

"Hi Ron! Oof! Hi Ginny!" he was nearly bowled over as they both tried to hug him at the same time.

He waved weakly at Molly as she looked in from the kitchen. "Hi Mo—Mrs. Weasley," he caught himself just in time.

"Harry, dear, good to see you! I'm glad you could get away from those dreadful Muggles for a while. You're just in time for lunch!"

"Erm, I'm not—" She bustled back into the kitchen without waiting for his reply, and he finished quietly, "—staying for lunch."

Come to think of it, the hunger hadn't set in yet. Maybe his body was finally acclimating.

"Not that I'm not glad to see you, mate, but what are you doing here? I mean, it's not exactly a great day for a friendly visit. It's been raining cats and dogs all day—and the cats have diarrhea, and the dogs are projectile-vomiting."

"Thank you for that very graphic image, Ron," he said with reluctant amusement, at the same time as Ginny wrinkled her nose and exclaimed, "Gross!"

"The truth is," he said to Ron in a lowered voice, "I need help." 

Ron saw the change in his expression and pulled him to a seat on the couch. Ginny followed and cast Muffliato as she sat down beside him. 

"All right. What can I do?"

"George and Fred are still at their shop in Diagon Alley, yeah?"

"Uuuuuh...yes?" This was definitely not how Ron had expected this conversation to go.

"Can you get a message to them? I need them to make some purchases for me." Harry handed Ron a scrap of parchment.

Ron glanced at it. "Dragonhide boots...charmed traveler's cloak...mokeskin bag, XXXL—that's not going to come cheap...duelist's quick-draw wand holster... How soon do you need these?"

 _Yesterday._

_A Time-Turner wasn't on the list._

"As soon as possible. In the next hour, if they can. Tell them I'll pay them back when I have access to my Gringotts account."

Ron waved that statement aside and went to the fireplace, where he took a pinch of Floo powder and stuck his head in. Beside him, Ginny stated flatly, "Something's happened, hasn't it."

Harry shook his head. "I can't say, Ginny."

"Well, obviously something's happened," Ron said, coming back. "You might as well have written 'Auror's kit' and been done with it. So did you find one of those...you know." He wriggled his eyebrows exaggeratedly, making the quest for the Horcruxes sound slightly obscene.

Harry couldn't help but smile at his antics. Then he decided that he was a coward for hoping that he could leave the burden of telling Ron to Hermione and stood. "Ginny tells me you've got a ghoul impersonating you in the attic. Show me?"

Ginny looked at him with sad eyes as Ron jumped up, eager to show off his masterpiece, but didn't follow. 

The poor ghoul was just as he remembered it, blazing red hair, pustules, and all. 

"Nice charm work, Ron," he said, and his best friend beamed. "The color of the hair is perfect." The smell was enough to drive them both quickly down to Ron's room. 

"You found the locket, didn't you?" Ron asked as soon as the door was closed.

"I... Actually, I did." He explained briefly about Regulus, Kreacher, and Mundungus. "But that's not why I'm here. I've decided—" he took a deep breath "—that I can't take you and Hermione with me to hunt for the Horcruxes."

Ron looked amused rather than put-out. "Hermione said you might say something like that. But you'd have to be daft to think we're going to let you go after them on your own. Why'd you think I put so much work into making that ghoul look just right? 'Cause it wasn't for charades at the wedding."

"Ron," he said, and his tone wiped the smile off Ron's face. "I've already talked to Hermione, and she agrees with me."

"Right, now pull the other one."

"I'm not joking. I'm sorry—I don't have enough time to explain properly, but Hermione will fill you in on why it's better for me to go alone."

"Well, explain it to me too, because I think I deserve to hear it."

Harry leaned against the door and tilted his head back. "When you imagined this hunt—this quest, if you will, from Dumbledore, you assumed that he left me lighted signposts saying 'here be the next clue.' You never imagined wandering aimlessly around the countryside, isolated and lonely and hungry, at once bored out of our minds and jumping at every unexpected sound wondering if this will be the place that Death Eaters will catch up to us. Because in reality Dumbledore never left me any signposts. Merlin knows how he expected me to fulfill his expectations. 'Blind luck' doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it? Maybe he thought it'd take years, that I would have the time. But if the Ministry falls, people will start dying—a lot of people, and I'll have weeks, a few months, not years."

Ron was smiling again, shaking his head. "The Ministry's not going to fall that easily. Even You-Know-Who didn't manage it the last time around."

There was a pause. Then Harry stated, "They have Hestia Jones. It's only going to get worse from here."

Ron dropped down on his bed, leaned forward, and looked up at him. "You're sure it was...?

"She was keeping watch over Malfoy Manor—Death Eater headquarters."

"Maybe she got away and is hiding until she can contact the Order. And anyway, Harry, you can't do this alone. You're not even seventeen yet. You need us with you."

"Right. Let me show you something." Harry drew his wand. The wards that spilled from it were so powerful that they glowed gold to the naked eye, and he heard Ron's gasp as he closed his eyes, the better to concentrate. He pulled the latent power from the earth deep beneath the foundations, wove it in spidersilk layers up to the five crooked chimneys, then let it settle gently over the garage with its Muggle gadgets, the garden full of gnomes snug in their burrows, the orchard where he had spent so many happy hours playing Quidditch with the children. When he was done he held out his free hand without opening his eyes. "Give me your hand," he commanded softly, panting a little.

He felt Ron's Quidditch-roughened palm touching his sweaty one, and with a twist of effort he tied off the last bit of the spell into it, as if Ron were the last knot in one of Molly's knitted sweaters, the one that kept the whole piece from unraveling. Then he opened his eyes and smiled into Ron's awe-stricken face.

"I can feel them," he whispered. "My mum down in the kitchen, my sister setting the table, even Dad, Fred, George, Bill, Charlie—even that idiot Percy. They're like distant sparks out there, somewhere in the world, but I know they're there. Harry, what did you _do_?"

"It's a Mage's Web. It was commonly used a couple of centuries ago by wizards and witches to defend their land and their families against their enemies, but it fell out of favor and common knowledge when we started moving into cities en-mass. It's tied to the earth—your family has poured your love and magic into this land for decades, and it sustains you in return. This earth recognizes you and claims you. I've merely tied that recognition back to your magic."

Ron looked down at his hands, dazed. "This is...this is a lot. How did you even learn to do this stuff? And when? Have you been holding back on me?"

Harry allowed his smile to take on a hint of a mischievous smirk. "Well, I am the Chosen One."

Ron threw a pillow at him.

"Ron, about that—" Harry started, but was interrupted by Ron sitting bolt upright on his bed. 

"George just came through the Floo. And...and something's happened. My dad is— I don't know. He's had a bad shock. I think he's coming back, too."

Harry wrenched open the door and pounded down the stairs, Ron close on his heels. 

George grinned as he saw Harry and held up a small bag with a drawstring, furry and unremarkable on the outside, but one of the most useful things an Auror—or any witch or wizard, really—could have. (He had kept Hagrid's gift for the entirety of his career, only setting it aside when the charms on it became irrevocably frayed in the years after his retirement.) "This little beauty took a bit of trouble to find, believe you me. The other stuff's inside."

Harry clapped George on the back. "Thanks, mate. You and Fred are life-savers."

"Don't worry about paying us back. We'll just take it out of your share of first-quarter earnings," he winked. "So, you plan on becoming the youngest Auror ever?"

"I—" Harry started, ready to offer up something vague and gently dissembling, but Ron, at his side, whispered, "he's back" just as Arthur's hand on the family clock moved to "The Burrow," and they heard the tiny pop of Apparition outside.

They all tensed. Even George, who had not heard about Hestia, could sense that there was something amiss in their father's early return. 

Arthur paused for a moment on the threshold, nonplussed for a moment to find every eye fixed on his face. Then he smiled with an effort—"'lo, boys, Ginny"—and came forward to shake Harry's hand. "Good to see you, Harry." He said with forced cheer. "Hope you're staying for lunch? I'll just pop into the kitchen for a mo, right." His hand was cold and clammy, and Harry closed his eyes for a moment, already knowing what he was going to tell Molly.

"Mr. Weasley," Harry said, "I've told Ron about Hestia being missing. If you have further news, I think it would be best if everyone heard."

Arthur paused for a moment, torn. "You could be right," he murmured at last. "Ginny, ask your mother to come in for a minute, please." But Molly had already hurried in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron as she came up to her husband.

"Arthur? What's happened?"

"Molly—" his voice crackled a little, and he visibly steeled himself. "They found Hestia's body half an hour ago. She had the words 'blood traitor' burned into her chest."

Molly's hand went to her mouth to cover a gasp. Ron dropped to the couch, looking like he might hurl. George was so pale the freckles stood out like tiny dots of blood against his face. Ginny's hand found his and clutched it tight. "Oh, the poor, poor girl."

"She was investigating suspicious activity at Malfoy Manor. When she didn't report in this morning..."

Harry allowed Arthur's voice to fade out in a wash of helpless rage. Why hadn't he been able to stop this? Wasn't that why he was here? Why hadn't he said something—anything—to stop Scrimgeour going after Malfoy?

"Are you all right?" Ginny whispered, breaking into his litany of self-blame. He held her hand tight and breathed deeply, commanding his mind to halt its downward spiral. After a while he regained enough calm to remember his therapist telling him, "You blame yourself because you've convinced yourself that you carry the world on your back—but also because it gives you an illusion of control. If it is your fault that things turned out a certain way, then you could have changed them; you were never powerless. But sometimes, we are just that—we are stunningly, abjectly powerless. It does not diminish us to admit that."

Harry squeezed Ginny's hand. "Her parents live in Cardiff. They should know what happened to her, and why," Harry whispered as Arthur fell silent.

Arthur nodded and briefly squeezed his shoulder. "Good lad. Yes, I shall go myself this afternoon. No doubt Thicknesse will send someone, but they should know the part she played in the Order as well."

"Oh Arthur," Molly said, and hugged her husband tight, and Ron stood silently, and their arms encompassed him as well, then George, and finally Ginny, and Harry when she refused to let go of him.

He Apparated into the garden at Privet Drive and almost fell to his knees on landing. The empty feeling at his core was back, though his stomach was comfortably full of Molly's cream-of-wild-mushroom soup and herb-roasted chicken and beautiful home-made bread. 

_Oh, I was an idiot._ He almost laughed at having mistaken the one for the other. _Insert Hermione-style comment here about men and their stomachs._

His Auror guard had changed while he'd been away, and he mumbled apologies to the angry man with the huge handlebar mustache who came chasing him up to the front door. "No, I can't tell you where I've been, sorry," he said, before shutting the door in his face. 

None of the Dursleys acknowledged him as he went past them, silently recasting the wards over the fireplace with a wave of his hand as he passed. He stumbled up the stairs, weaving slightly, feeling the drain to his magic like an oozing artery wound. He hit his bed with a groan and was just barely conscious enough to cast his personal wards before sleep overcame him with a vengeance.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized that this work will contain some information from the _Fantastic Beasts_ prequel movies (oops), so I've added minor spoiler warnings for them. Sorry about that!

"Harry Potter, sir." There was a nervous plucking at his elbow and a soft timid voice that sounded like it was trying to wake him and not wake him at the same time.

He smiled, warmth sluicing through him as he opened his eyes to find the loyal house-elf and friend he had lost so long ago standing next to his bed. "Hullo, Dobby. Thank you for coming."

His gratitude seemed to have short-circuited Dobby's instinctive urge to punish himself for disturbing Harry's rest, and he looked at the book he had picked up from the nightstand blankly before setting it down. 

"I is sorry for waking Harry Potter, but Kreacher said—"

Harry sat up in bed, stifling a yawn. "It's okay. You did the right thing. Did you and Kreacher find Mundungus Fletcher?"

"We did, but—but—"

With a sinking feeling, Harry plucked the book, then the lamp off the nightstand before the elf lunged for them. "No, don't punish yourself! Just tell me."

"Mundungus Fletcher is dead, sir!" Dobby wailed.

Harry closed his eyes for a moment and exhaled, pushing all the unanswerable questions to one side so he could focus on next steps. "Was he already dead when you found him?"

The little elf shook his head.

"But he died before you could get to him?"

A nod.

"And Kreacher's with him now?"

Another nod.

"Can you take me to him?"

A third nod.

"All right. Wait for me here. I'll be ten minutes." Mercifully, it was before dawn, and the Dursleys had not been awakened by the noise. He blanked his mind and hopped into the shower for a quick wash, concentrating for a moment on inhabiting himself completely: on the warm water beating down on his shoulders, the dark hair straggling into this eyes, the untrained muscles shifting smoothly beneath his skin, the wet tile beneath his feet, his power circling uneasily around the hollow feeling at the core of him.

_It's this place. It's the complete absence of magic that I feel._

_Told you we should've just skedaddled._

_Tempting._

_We can bring the oatmeal if you want._

He snorted water up his nose and sneezed. _Three more days._

If he had left from the very beginning, would Hestia still be alive? He imagined the different paths that might have led to her survival. If he had told Scrimgeour about Malfoy... If he'd told the Order... If he'd found some way to communicate with Snape... If he'd detoured to Diagon Alley to get his gear before meeting with Scrimgeour that first time... If, if, if...

In this world Hestia would never have the chance to impart her skill and experience to witches and wizards in the Statute of Secrecy Task Force during the Calamity; to leave the DMLE for her trip around the world; to meet a wizard visiting his brother in Mali at a tiny bar surrounded by golden dunes; to fall in love with that brother who, though he had no magic of his own, performed many more miracles in his work with Médecins Sans Frontières; to found the Emergency Magical Aid for Muggles Society, which would save an untold number of lives; to have a daughter with her hazel eyes and quick wit and her husband's ebony skin and compassion for all things great and small...

He closed his eyes, leaned his forearm against the shower stall wall, and gave himself up to grief.

Harry immediately recognized the room Dobby Apparated him into: the Leaky Cauldron's smallest, cheapest room, where the temperature spells never seemed to work correctly, so that it was too hot in summer and too cold in winter. It was even shabbier than he remembered, with its mold-spotted, faded curtains, its matching nightstand and dresser of scarred unvarnished wood, and the bed with stuffing starting to come out of a mattress that looked decades old.

"Master Potter, sir," Kreacher creaked, giving him a low bow as he appeared. He nodded. "Thanks Kreacher, thanks Dobby. Good job finding Mundungus."

He quickly warded the room before slowly walking around the body, part of him revolted and nauseated ( _that's me_ ), and part of him examining the scene with a cool professional eye. 

There was surprise on Mundungus' face rather than terror. He had not seen his death coming—a small mercy. The body was lying on its back, spread-eagled, the head pointed towards the door. It was still warm. Mundungus' clothes had been ripped back from his torso (Harry's mind flinched away from the question of whether they'd found Hestia in the same state) to expose the word "mudblood-lover" across his bare chest. It had been carved instead of burned into the flesh. The wound had bled very little—inflicted after death, then.

This soon after casting, he hardly needed to reach out with his power to taste the scorched metal tang of the Killing Curse in the air. The murderer had not bothered to conceal his magical signature, but it was one that was unfamiliar to Harry: it gave the impression of damp, moldy places, but also of something vitreous and gritty, like lightning-struck sand or ground glass. The room smelled of his magic, and also of something fainter, familiar and acid-sharp.

He drew back and went to the window opposite the door to find half a boot-mark left on the window sill. It was large enough to rule out most women, and from the sole pattern had probably come from a well-worn dragonhide boot. 

The killer had likely been waiting for Mundungus in the room when he'd come in, and his Killing Curse had flung Mundungus back towards the door. He'd left his message after killing (too squeamish to do it beforehand or not sure enough of his binding and silencing spells) before leaving by the window. Chances were he'd entered the same way. He was young or stupid enough to be foolhardy, of a family which regarded itself highly but had lately fallen on hard times. A perfect target for Voldemort's recruiting efforts.

Now for the more urgent questions. Harry drew his wand and approached the body again. " _Accio_ locket," he commanded. Nothing. He could not feel the locket's aura, but that didn't necessarily mean anything when he was dealing with a wizard as used to concealing magical artifacts as Mundungus. He looked up. "Kreacher, could you try summoning the locket?"

The old elf scrunched up his face, his whole body tensing, making it look even more wrinkled, but shook his head a moment later. "Don't punish yourself," Harry said automatically as he considered. So much for the easy way. No help for it, then.

He levitated the body upward until Mundungus' shirt and coat trailed the ground. Then he shielded himself and quickly and methodically riffled through Mundungus pockets, pulling out his wand, an unfamiliar gold-tooled pocketwatch with a broken chain, a pair of familiar solid silver goblets, an ivory lady's comb, a letter opener with a jeweled hilt, a set of tiny intricately-carved conch shells, four pairs of cuff links imbued with minor charms, a silk embroidered sash imbued with minor curses, assorted pieces of jewelry in silver and gold, and a handful of sickles and knuts. Of the locket there was no sign.

Harry put everything back into the various pockets and lowered the body back to the ground. He pondered. Mundungus' killer was evidently not a thief, but had he taken a trophy? That was certainly possible. Or perhaps Mundungus had already encountered Dolores Umbridge or sold the locket. Or...

He looked around the room again, then went to the dresser, opened each drawer, and felt for false bottoms. He did the same to the nightstand. More out of thoroughness than hope, he stuck his arm into each of the holes in the mattress. On the fourth try, his questing hand glanced against something cold and hard. His heart-rate sped up. He reached further in and pulled out the object. It was a sphere of greenish-gray metal, roughly the size of an apricot. It had no markings of any kind and stolidly rebuffed his various magical probes. He stared at it blankly in the palm of his hand for a few minutes until inspiration struck.

He turned the sphere around and around, twisting each time until finally there appeared the thin slit of an opening. Additional effort revealed the corkscrew lines of a lid. He had it off in seconds and gave a great gasp of relief to see the locket in miniature form in the bottom hemisphere, along with more valuables Mundungus had liberated from their owners from Merlin-knows-where. 

"It's here," he said to the two elves watching him in wide-eyed silence. "Let's go."

Kreacher Apparated him straight into the kitchen at 12 Grimmauld Place and they all sat down around the table. "All right, tell me everything, Harry said, looking to his loyal companions.

There wasn't much to tell. The elves had picked up Mundungus' trail yesterday evening at Enchanting Antiques, on the shallow end of Knockturn Alley, which, in addition to its stated business, also occasionally dabbled in fencing magical goods. They followed him around Knockturn Alley as he gambled and drank his way around several bars before finally going into the Leaky Cauldron before dawn. Mundungus' room had been warded, and Dobby was about to leave to tell Harry when the shields suddenly collapsed. They had gone in to discover Mundungus already dead.

They had seen no one enter or leave or heard anything from the room.

Harry nodded once the two had finished speaking. He hadn't really expected anything; house elves, with their worlds narrowed and confined to the commands of their masters, often made dull witnesses (not that many wizards were much better, and with less excuse). "You both did really well, thank you." He smiled at his first elf friend. "Dobby, can you go back to Hogwarts? I'm going to need your help again, and probably soon. But for the time being, stay safe, okay?"

"Anything for Harry Potter!" the little elf nodded, beaming, and popped away.

Harry pulled out his wand to levitate the locket out of Mundungus' sphere. Once free of its container's charms, it instantly resumed its original size. He repressed a shudder as the piece of Voldemort's soul within reached out to its twin in him, stroking with covetous sibilant hisses through the horror and pain of his darkest memories. How could he ever have borne the touch of this disgusting thing against his skin?

He looked at Kreacher, whose bloodshot eyes were bulging out of his face. "I think you recognize this?" 

The old elf nodded jerkily. "The locket Master Regulus wanted to destroy."

"Yes. Now we're going to finish what he started, you and I."

Harry tapped his wand against a cabinet along the back wall, which slid aside to reveal a hidden staircase. He led the way down into the subbasement, holding his wand with its conjured light up high so that neither of them tripped on the steep, mildewed steps and broke their neck. 

At the bottom he paused and looked around to orient himself. He'd only ever been down here twice before: once when they'd discovered it, once when they'd sealed it away. Because this— _this_ —was the decayed and rotten root of the house.

To his left, a series of cages made of the same greenish-gray metal as Mundungus' sphere stretched out into the darkness and out of sight, so far that he suspected they went all the way beneath another flat. Each cell held its own complete set of manacles, though all of them, to his relief then and now, were empty. 

To his right was a rune-covered door of thick brass-bound oak. He pushed it open with more force than he intended, suddenly angry.

The stuffy air down here smelled of dust, damp, and mold—no worse than the rest of the house, and yet his mind could not help but add to it the metallic scent of dried blood and an acid tinge of bile topped with putrefying meat. He glared at the dining table-sized block of obsidian he had come down here to find and resisted the urge to smash it to pieces.

He breathed in and out carefully for a minute, forcing himself to calm his racing heart. Only then did he realize that beside him, Kreacher was shaking like a scarecrow in a storm, wheezing with both fists stuffed in his mouth in an effort to stifle his sobs.

He knelt in front of the old elf, bewildered. "Kreacher, what is it?"

Kreacher threw himself down, his forehead pressed against the ground. In-between his weeping, he intoned, "Kreacher is... Kreacher is honored to serve... Kreacher's life is yours... Let Kreacher's blood water the foundations of this most noble and ancient house... let Kreacher be one with those who served before..."

Harry rocked back. Those were ritual words. Kreacher had come down here with him despite expecting to be _sacrificed_.

"Kreacher, no," he managed to choke out, raising him up with a hand on each bony elbow. " _No._ I'm so sorry I let you think—I didn't realize... Just, nothing's going to happen to you, okay? I'm not going to hurt you. All I need you to do is help me shield while I destroy that vile thing."

Kreacher stared at him for a long time, still shaking slightly until the words finally got through to him. "Kreacher is... Kreacher is not going on the big black stone?"

"No, Kreacher," Harry said forcefully. "The locket is. I'm going to need you to stay with me for a long time to come, okay?"

The house-elf finally nodded. "Kreacher will serve."

Harry gave him a smile, firmly pushing down his own surge of emotion. "Thanks, Kreacher." He rose to his feet, focusing on his task once more. "All right, here's what we're going to do. Fiendfyre's the only thing we have right now that's going to destroy this thing. But it's going to be dangerous, tricky to control. I don't think I'm going to be able to handle both the fiendfyre and the shield. But that altar has its own shields, and since it's part of the house, you can call it. Think you can do that for me?"

"Kreacher obeys."

Harry understood. "Kreacher, I command you to hold the shield and contain my magic, whatever happens."

Kreacher bowed low, with a gravitas that gave him a sudden unexpected dignity.

Harry levitated the locket over to the altar and laid it at the center of the sorcerer's circle carved into the stone. He took a deep breath, exhaled, leveled his wand. " _Open_ ," he hissed in Parseltongue, and as the locket's lid sprang open he stabbed his wand forward and shouted, "Kreacher, now!"

Black-haloed fiendfyre blossomed out of thin air, grew claws, a beak, great flickering wings that swelled until it had absorbed all the oxygen out of Kreacher's shielded space over the altar. It threw back its head and gave a silent cry, then swooped down on its prey.

The locket shrieked, a shrill spike of agony in his mind that went on and on until suddenly the pendant cracked and the firebird devoured the piece of soul within as if it were a morsel of the sweetest fruit. It screeched triumphantly, still hungry, ravenous, needing more. Harry's mind filled with fire. The locket's casing melted, gold tracing over the carving on the altar. The entrapped fiendfyre blazed more darkly still, needing to feed, to ravage, to burn this place to ash. It began to tear and rend at its shield-cage; its desire was Harry's now, or perhaps it had always been his need for destruction made manifest. And why not? This place, which had accumulated power for generations through the agony of others, did it not deserve to be razed to the ground? A crack appeared in the shield, and Harry smiled as the firebird battered itself against it. Soon it would be free. Soon...

"Master Harry," said a voice, insistent and frightened, at his elbow. "Master Harry, please. You must stop. Master Harry—"

He could not ignore it, for the voice was bound to him, and through it he could feel the house's pain as his fire ate into its very marrow. The shield over the altar glowed bright, cracks running through it like a spider's web. Harry clutched convulsively at Kreacher's thin shoulder. "Help me!" he screamed, and then pulled the fire back into himself, down and down, back into the place where it had always lived, the place that had nothing to do with the piece of Voldemort's soul and everything do what lay at the heart of him, what had blazed across lifetimes and universes to this one, yearning, lost, seeking.

Harry woke with the scream still echoing in his head. He sat up gasping. He looked around blindly, almost expecting bars of burning greenish-gray steel around him. After a full minute he recognized Regulus' room, late morning sunshine flooding through the open windows. He dropped back unto the mattress with a groan.

_Ugh._

_How's about let's go the basilisk fang route next time._

_Ugh._

_Because this was a bad idea. Baaaaad idea. Baaaaaad ideeeeeea._

_Duly noted._

He felt sore and raw all over, like he had a severe sunburn on the inside of his skin. His head was beginning to throb with the beginnings of a headache. Well, at least he could do something about that this time. His wand, he was relieved to note, was back in its sheath. He cast a mild pain-reduction charm, then a mild general healing charm. He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes as he waited for both to take effect.

_The Death Eaters are hunting down Order members._

_Two does not a pattern make._

_Still..._

_Still, I think the Death Eaters are hunting down Order members, yeah._

_Fuck. I thought things were supposed to be going better. Isn't that why I'm sharing headspace with you?_

_That's like saying you expect me to immunize you against the bubonic plague because I died from the Spanish Flu._

_What? That wasn't funny._

_It wasn't meant to be._

_Having two depressed voices in my head is exponentially worse than one._

The other depressed voice in his head was forced to agree.

There was a soft knock on the door.

"Yes?" He leveraged himself upright as the door opened. Kreacher came in bearing a silver tray that was longer than he was tall. Harry almost backed into the headboard before he realized that Kreacher's teeth-bared expression was him _beaming_.

"Hey, uh, Kreacher?" he said uncertainly.

"Master is awake!" Kreacher croaked cheerily, sounding like a bullfrog which had mistakenly inhaled a balloonful of helium gas. "Master must eat to keep up his strength."

"Uh...thanks, Kreacher." He stared at the veritable feast in front of him with wide eyes. "You made all this for me?"

"Kreacher serves."

"This is way beyond... Are you feeling all right, Kreacher? Did you get any magical backlash from me when, you know—" he mimed a bird on a dive-bombing run.

The old elf shook his head. "Master made the fire go away and fainted."

"Fainted, huh?" he chuckled. "Guess I'd better dig in, then." The rich scent of caramelized cheese and onion soup made him feel light-headed. He'd missed this. He'd missed this so much. He broke off a piece of still-warm bread and dipped it into the soup. He didn't bother to stifle a moan at the first taste of it on his tongue.

_You can go shove your 24.7 lbs of oatmeal where the sun don't shine, Aunt Petunia._

Kreacher watched happily as he mopped the bowl clean, then started in on buttery thick-cut slices of the tenderest roast he had ever tasted, perfectly-baked potatoes with baby onions, sweet Portuguese squash, fresh lettuce and tomatoes, and even a cupcake-sized cheesecake sprinkled with honeyed pecans. 

There was no way he could finish everything, but Kreacher looked quite pleased at the effort he'd made. "Listen, Kreacher," Harry said once the elf had snapped his fingers to vanish the tray and fluffed up the pillowed behind him, "do you remember the people who used to come to the house when Sirius was alive?"

"Mudbloods and blood-traitors," Kreacher responded automatically as if on cue.

"My friends," Harry corrected him, "so I'm going to ask you not to call them that. I'd like to open this house to them again. Think you can handle that? I promise no one will treat you badly."

"Kreacher serves," the elf said, plucking restlessly at the ancient wool throw hanging half off the bed.

"Kreacher, look at me." He waited patiently until the old elf looked up. "Your comfort and happiness matter to me, though those words are probably meaningless to you right now. I have two choices to offer you, and I promise I won't be mad no matter which you choose. The first choice is this: you can stay, but you have to promise not to betray us. You don't have to serve anyone if you don't want to, but you can't call anyone names, and you can't work against us in any way. If you'd prefer not to, you can go back to Hogwarts instead. I'm sorry, I know this is your home—more than it is mine, in fact—but people's lives are at stake."

Kreacher looked down at his fingers still digging into the soft fabric.

"You don't have to answer me right now. If you'd prefer to think about it for a bit—"

"Kreacher stays," Kreacher said firmly, though he didn't look back up.

Harry waited for a moment, but there was nothing more. "All right. I trust you, Kreacher. Thank you."

Harry took another brief nap, digestive and healing both, passively absorbing the house's ambient magic into his drained core as he slept. He woke up feeling much better, and mentally mapped out his next steps with eyes still closed. 

_First step: find out what the Order knows about Mundungus' death._

_Back to the Burrow?_

_I don't want to have to wait for Arthur._ He considered and rejected various forms of communication, grousing out loud, "Y'know, I really wish Dumbledore spent more time and effort on the problem of infrastructure." _Word-of-mouth and weekly meetings are all very well until you need to convey urgent information and you have no idea what anyone's schedule is like._ And portraits. Dear Merlin, don't get him started on the lack of security in using bloody portraits. It was at times like this that he felt like he had gone back two centuries, not a mere seventy years.

He finally settled on a plan that, while cumbersome, at least didn't make him break into hives at the thought of it. Sitting up, he drew his wand and thought a moment about second chances and Dobby's beaming face and Kreacher's look of awe when he had understood why it was that Harry needed his help. Then he swept his wand forward and cried, "Expecto Patronum!"

He gave the ethereal stag his instructions and then walked out of Regulus' room and down the stairs, trailing the tips of his fingers curiously against the wall. Something felt different. If this had been a Muggle house, he would have said that after long years of abandonment, a door or window had opened somewhere, and the house was taking its first steady breaths of fresh air. But this wasn't a Muggle house. It was a house that had belonged to Pure-blood supremacists for generations, and he had wondered from time to time if Sirius would have left it to him if he'd known precisely what the subbasement had long been used for, and what books one might find on the shelves in the library if one knew where to look. 

But what if... He stopped before the portrait of Walburga Black and deliberately drew back the curtains. "FOUL MUDBLOOD! FILTH! HOW DARE YOU DESECRATE THE HALLS OF MY FORE—" He let the curtains fall again.

_That went well._

His mouth twisted. He flicked his wand and cast _Finite Incantatem_ , then an unsticking charm, two different cutting charms, and a bombardment curse. He'd tried it before, of course, many times, and this time was no different. The portrait remained stuck to the wall, unperturbed and imperturbable.

All of a sudden something seemed to break in him. He felt it coming down, the walls of a dam blasting apart like the shattering of the altar-shield in the subbasement. He held his magic on a tight leash as he ripped down the curtain around the portrait, roaring at it over the sounds of Mrs. Black's shrieking, "Your forefathers were charlatans, fools, and bigots. They were tools for the ambitious and dogs to the powerful, and a more enlightened age will remember them as such. So _fuck_ your forefathers and the inbred flobberworms they rode in on!"

And then, as the wards rippled acknowledgment and the front door opened, the portrait wrenched off the wall, and he fell back on his arse with Mrs. Walburga Black in his arms.


	8. Chapter 8

"Hullo Harry," said the man at the door, bemused.

"Hi Remus," Harry replied, tilting his head back, laughing a little at himself. "Just, uh, redecorating a bit." He carefully moved the portrait to one side, then transfigured the old curtains into a waste sack and shoved it unceremoniously inside.

"So I see. However did you get it off the wall?"

Harry showed him his right hand and the spot of blood welling from his little finger. He hadn't even felt the nick when his fist had met the wall.

Remus' eyes shuttered, but he offered Harry a hand to pull him to his feet. "Be careful, Harry. This house has a history with Dark Magic."

He debated arguing the difference between Blood Magic and Dark Magic, but decided to let it go. "How is Tonks?"

If possible, Remus withdrew even further. "She's fine," he responded curtly.

Bollocks. He'd forgotten about that fight he'd had with Remus, hadn't he? That was a subject he couldn't let go. But later.

When they stepped into the kitchen, a steaming pot of Earl Grey with two tea cups were waiting for him on the kitchen table. "Thanks, Kreacher," he said to the empty room. A tray of biscuits popped into being next to the pot, and he smiled.

"Sirius' old house-elf?" Remus frowned. "You let him stay?"

"We have an agreement," Harry shrugged, sitting them down at one corner of the table and pouring for them both. "I trust him."

Remus absorbed that statement in silence, probably because his mind was on more urgent matters: "Why aren't you at your Aunt and Uncle's house, Harry? You being on your own out here is dangerous. More: it's reckless."

It was odd, talking with Remus again. There was the expected rush of gratitude and joy, of course, but also a wariness, the conscious discomfort of having already made an unconscious decision to hold a part of himself back. 

"Tonks told you about my Patronus, right?"

Remus paused, but gave in to the subject change gracefully. "She said you were concerned about Mundungus."

"I discovered his body. This morning, at the Leaky Cauldron. Someone AK'ed him and carved 'mudblood-lover' into his chest."

The other man inhaled sharply. "I think you'd better tell me everything, Harry."

 _"I think you'd better tell me everything."_ He'd said those exact same words to countless witnesses, victims, suspects. They hung strangely in the air between them now, gathering tension the longer he remained silent.

Finally he replied, "I'm sorry Remus, but I don't think I can. Mundungus had information I needed, so I went to find him. I didn't see or hear anyone, and I don't know who did it. I'm wondering if the Aurors or the Order does."

For a moment Remus looked at him as if he were a stranger, as if someone he'd never met before lived within Harry's body. Which, to be fair, was almost half true.

Harry held his gaze. Remus was the first to look away. "Harry, you aren't even seventeen years old yet. You shouldn't have to walk in on something like that."

Harry deliberately took a sip of his tea. Remus hadn't touched his.

"Maybe not. But this is what Dumbledore asked me to do."

"I can't imagine that to be true," Remus argued. "I'm sure he thought he would always be at your side. And now that he's gone, one of us should be here for you."

Harry refused to take the bait. "Did Dumbledore ever tell the Order the prophecy about me?"

"Only that you are our best hope of defeating Voldemort," Remus replied quietly.

Dumbledore, keeping his secrets as close to the chest as ever. "It actually says that one of us has to die for the other to live. In other words, I have to kill Voldemort."

"Prophecies are notoriously tricky to interpret. I'm sure there is another way," Remus stated, earnest and open. "We will find another way."

He tamped tightly down on the embers of anger flaring to life in his belly. He didn't point out that there was no hypothetical _we_.

This conversation was going off the tracks, and he couldn't even remember how. "Tell me about Mundungus. Did they catch the person responsible?"

Remus clearly did not want to tell him about Mundungus, but he replied, "The Aurors are investigating. Mundungus had a lot of dealings with various criminal elements. They think it might've been a deal gone wrong."

"Even with the word carved into his chest?"

"It could have been done to throw everyone off the scent."

"What about the Order? Surely none of you think that, after Hestia's death yesterday."

"You shouldn't have to think about any of this."

Harry wanted to run down to the subbasement and scream his frustration out to the empty cages. "Clearly I am anyway."

"Let the Aurors work on it. Kingsley and Moody are looking into it as well."

He understood suddenly that it was Remus who didn't want to know, who didn't want to recognize the ruthlessness with which Dumbledore had played this game; that someone was giving up Order members to the Death Eaters; that Harry had no innocence left when it came to _kill or be killed_. It was a sort of moral cowardice, a way to shirk the responsibility of having known and done nothing. Better to not know instead, and if he suspected, at least not know for sure. Better to have no control at all than to try and fail.

He drank his tea and fought down the urge to deliver the truth like a broom-handle to the face.

"Do you think I'm wrong about Snape?" Harry asked instead.

"In what sense?" Remus seemed less startled by the turn than Harry himself in asking.

"In every sense. You were always the one telling me to trust Snape because Dumbledore trusted him. Dumbledore trusted him right up to his death."

Remus winced. "It seems I was the one in the wrong."

Harry ran a hand through his hair. "That wasn't— Dumbledore and Snape were—and are—both brilliant. What if I only saw what they wanted me to see? I mean, wouldn't it have been very, very easy for Snape to have killed Dumbledore in some way that was undetectable by the Order? Then he could have continued to spy for Voldemort."

"It must have worn on him, all those years of spying and being under Dumbledore's thumb," Remus considered. "He saw the opportunity to break free and cover himself in glory, and took it."

"So you don't think there's any chance that he's still on our side."

"I don't think we can hope for that, no." Remus gave Harry a curious look. "Why the sudden doubt, Harry? I would've thought you'd feel vindicated."

The obfuscation rose smoothly and without fore-planning to Harry's lips. "I heard that my mum and Snape knew each other before they went to Hogwarts. That they were friends."

"That may have been true, but they grew apart when Severus aligned himself with the Death Eater crowd."

"What was he like, at school?"

Remus pushed back from the table a little. He wouldn't meet Harry's eyes. "I didn't know him that well, since we were in different Houses and all. I don't think he was very popular even in his own House. He was a bit of a loner, always in the library reading. He had a tongue on him even then. And of course he was up to his eyeballs in the Dark Arts, as I told you before."

Harry thought about eleven-year-old Snape at his Sorting, the look on his face when the Hat had cried "Gryffindor!" for Lily—not angry, not even resentful; he'd looked defeated, as if he had always known that loneliness was waiting to welcome him back like an old friend. 

"Harry," Remus said, "I remember you asking about your dad hexing Severus a while ago. Is that still bothering you?"

"My dad—" Harry spoke slowly in order to keep his voice from shaking— "had everything. A loving family, status, popularity, looks, money, talent. And instead of using all that privilege to help others, he chose to be a bully instead."

"But he did use his privilege to help others," Remus responded quietly. "If not for him, I could never have finished school. You don't know what it was—what it _is_ like—for...for people like me. The kind of discrimination we face. Your dad was a good person, Harry. Maybe not perfect, but he was good."

"Ah, Merlin." Harry slid his hands over his face in an attempt to push back the tears. "Was Snape in love with my mum?"

There was a long moment of silence. Then Remus said carefully, as if tip-toeing through a conversational minefield, "Even if he was, she didn't reciprocate. And there were rumors..."

"Rumors."

Remus shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "That he and Regulus Black were...erm, more than friends. I think that's why Sirius hated him so much."

Shame colored Harry's face. Was he really disguising prurient curiosity as...as profiling an adversary? And condemning Remus for shying away from the truth? Merlin, he was despicable.

Remus must have mistaken his blush for something else, because he added quickly, "They were just rumors, you understand. If they had been substantiated, Dumbledore would never have allowed him to teach."

Shame flared back to anger. That Remus, of all people—! He bit back his instinctive retort with an effort. The emotional see-sawing was giving him whiplash. He shoved down everything, all of it.

"Thank you for talking to me about them. I know it's not easy for you."

Remus shook his head and smiled a little. "Good memories, for the most part. Sometimes I think they will always be the best years of my life. I'm glad we had a little time to talk about it."

Harry nodded and a little silence fell. 

"Harry," Remus began slowly, as if feeling his way. Harry braced himself. "The Order believes—that is, Dumbledore gave you a mission, didn't he? A very important one."

"He did."

"Can you tell me about it?"

"I'm sorry, I can't."

"All right." Disappointment, not hidden. "But...maybe I can help? I could fight with you, watch your back. I'm sure that's what James would've wanted."

"I don't think it would've been," Harry answered quietly. "My dad would've wanted you to stand by Tonks. To protect your family."

Remus reared back as if slapped. "You don't understand. I can't be with her. I'm not...not good for her. She's going to have a baby."

"All the more reason, then." 

Remus wasn't looking at him, but the misery was clear on his face. "Her parents hate me, and with good reason." He buried his face in his hands. "She'd be better off without me."

"Then get a divorce," Harry said ruthlessly.

Remus looked at him in shock. "What?"

"If you don't love her enough to be the partner she needs you to be, then get a divorce. Let her be free to find someone else."

"That's not— I should never have married her in the first place."

"Too late." Harry met Remus glare for glare. "You knew all of this when you committed yourself to her, and when you conceived a baby together. Nothing has changed, but now things are too hard for you? Now that it's all too real, you're going to go swanning off and leave her holding the pieces? You're going to abandon your kid, let him think his father didn't want him? And this is what you think my dad would've wanted?"

"You don't understand," Remus growled, the wolf flashing dark and savage across his face.

Harry pressed his hands against his eyes, suddenly feeling his exhaustion right down to the bone. "Maybe not. Maybe I understand nothing of what's really important. But I do know I would give anything—anything that's mine to give—for my dad to be here. I wouldn't care if he were a werewolf or a vampire or if he had to walk on wooden pegs like Mad-Eye Moody. But that's one wish that will never come true. Not for me."

Harry sat and stared at Remus' still-full teacup for a long time after he had left. He thought about Teddy, the wonderful loving child who would grow up to be a wonderful loving man. He thought about the way his godson had held back tears at his wedding when Bill had told him that he had been one of the family since the very beginning. How tightly he'd hugged Harry, who told him how proud Remus would have been. And Harry had known, despite being surrounded by so many people who loved him, how desperately Teddy had wished for his father to be there to share in his happiness, because it was precisely how Harry himself had felt in his happiest moments.

This time around, it would be Remus hugging his son. He exhaled slowly and made it a vow: _This time around, Remus will be there to hug his son and tell him how proud he is._

The last rays of a blood-red sunset touched the sludge-gray surface of the river with a trail of fire, giving it a kind of glamoured beauty there before the light faded and its heavily-polluted depths gained the eerie shadowed mysteries of night. Harry walked a little ways up the rubbish-strewn bank, slowly vending among rusting iron pipes, old tires, an overturned shopping cart, a torn garden hose, empty plastic containers of all colors, shapes, and sizes. His eyes were fixed on the tight rows of development houses opposite, where in his mind's eye he strode down a cobbled street past a row of identical brick houses with dirty windows and a palpable air of neglect.

He stopped opposite the turn into the street called Spinner's End, though he could not see it with the layers of dilapidated poverty-stricken dwellings in his way, not daring even in his Invisibility Cloak to come any closer to the place that for a time had been his sanctuary. Its rightful owner lived there now, and Harry imagined Snape among his beloved books, breathing in the scent of ink and paper and leather old and new, trailing his fingers down tightly-packed spines as Harry had liked to do. He imagined Snape's face bent rapt over an open volume, transported to other places, other times, other lives by the magic on yellowed pages in front of him. He heard the words of Rilke, Plath, Borges in Snape's rich baritone, and ached.

He started again to think about what he would say to Snape when next they met, that meeting more real now than it had ever been. 

_I'm sorry for not seeing the truth until it was too late._

_Thank you for protecting me from the very start._

_You are the bravest man I have ever known._

But he could get no further, because he knew he would never have the courage to utter the next words.

_I want to be your friend, though you've always detested me, though you might never see beyond my dad's face, though I wouldn't be able to stand it if I were merely a stand-in for my mum._

_I understood nothing, absolutely nothing, until your truth explained everything._

"You've haunted me for almost all the years of my life," he whispered to the river, and let its sluggish current carry the words away unheard into the darkness.


	9. Chapter 9

The next two days were spent at Grimmauld Place, slowly feeding his magic into the wards and bending them to his will. It was like trying to divert a river with a shovel, hard nerve-wracking work that could tow him under in a flash if he miscalculated. He ended every day dripping with sweat and trembling with exhaustion, and sometimes only the thought of Kreacher's lavish meal awaiting him in the kitchen gave him the energy to stumble his way out of the subbasement.

He had never attempted this in that other lifetime. Ginny never liked Grimmauld Place, and he had been only too happy to move out with her to a flat with no dark memories attached.

But this place held power accumulated through generations; more: consciously amassed and zealously hoarded through generations. His mind tried to shy away from the next thought and he forced it back: consciously amassed and zealously hoarded _through use of the Dark Arts._ He was attempting to harness power created through coercion, rape, torture, murder. But if he could use it to save lives, then he would count the stain on his soul a worthwhile price.

On the night before the Order was due to escort the Dursleys away, he arrived back at Privet Drive in an Inferius-like fog of fatigue. Kreacher deposited him on his bed before popping away, and he lay there for many blank minutes trying to convince himself to gather his wash things and head for the shower. He closed his eyes. Maybe he'd rest for a while before making the attempt.

In that trancelike state, his door suddenly banged open to reveal his uncle red-faced and glowering on the landing. "Your aunt was waiting on you for dinner!" he snapped.

He was already dreaming, of course. He waved a casual hand. "No need. Kreacher made peeing...er, Peking duck," he slurred. "I might've corrupted him. That time we got takeout. He's branching out." He giggled gleefully.

There was a moment of silence from the door. Then his uncle shouted, "If you think I'm trusting our safety to limp-wristed drunken freaks who laugh about corruption and weak morals, you've got another think coming! I'm not falling for your tricks, boy. We're staying right here, come Flood or the Devil Himself!"

"It'll be Dedalus coming, I think. Dunno who else. Better hope the Devil Himself's busy with other things."

"DID YOU HEAR WHAT I SAID?"

He sighed and buried his face in his pillow before gesturing the door closed. Easier to do the shower thing tomorrow, anyhow.

Loud stomping up and down the stairs woke him from a dead sleep. Damn it, he'd forgotten to put up the privacy wards last night. Right on cue, his stomach growled, and he groaned. 

_Can't leave until I get the Dursleys sorted._

_Let Dedalus deal with 'em._

_I may be up to my eyebrows in Dark-Arts wrangling, but I don't actually want to commit torture._

An elephant dragged a herd of zebras down the stairs, and Harry decided that he should probably take his shower before things really got out of hand.

He scurried into the bathroom while the Dursleys appeared to be engaged in a loud argument in the sitting room. When he re-emerged, the house had fallen into ominous silence.

He sighed. _Here we go._

Uncle Vernon was standing with one arm against the mantel of the fake fireplace in his best "patriarch of the family" pose. The mouth-watering scents of a fry-up wafted in from the kitchen, and Harry sternly told his grumbling stomach to behave.

"I take it you've made your decision." Harry leaned back against the sitting room entrance and crossed his arms.

"We're not leaving," Uncle Vernon growled.

"Right then." Harry turned to go.

"Not until we have to. There's still days left until you're seventeen."

Trust his uncle to have remembered _that_.

"If you don't leave today, nobody's coming back for you in a week."

"You can't do that to us! We're in this mess because of you!"

Harry shrugged. "You can think that if you like, but it doesn't change anything."

"How dare you treat us this way, after everything we've done for you!"

"You know, that speech rather loses its substance after the first hundred-fifty times or so."

His uncle dropped the pose and advanced on him, crowding him back against the entranceway until he had to look up to meet his gaze. There was a time when the close proximity would have set his heart racing, adrenaline rushing through him in preparation for fight or flight. Now he knew that he wouldn't even need to raise his wand to defend himself against his man who, though he knew of the fact of magic, had never truly deigned to alter his perception of reality to accommodate its existence. So he waited.

"Your father was just as full of himself, and look where it got him."

A bully's tactics, flailing for any blow that might hit home. Falling back on tried-and-true formulas to get beneath his skin. In the strange logic of Vernon Dursley, any incivility from his nephew would allow him to dismiss everything he said as the ranting of a callow teenager. "At least he cared enough about his family to attempt to protect us. Are you gonna choose your drill company over Aunt Petunia and Dudley, Uncle Vernon?" 

His uncle took a step back, his face turning puce. "How dare you?" he yelled.

Harry just looked at him. And then he said, slowly and very clearly, "Dudley will get married and have children one day: a little boy and girl who will adore you and call you grampa, and you'll read them bedtime stories and take them to the park and ballet and football practice. Are you willing to risk that for a few more days sitting at your dusty desk in your dusty office trying to sell drills?"

Uncle Vernon jumped away from Harry as if his words had been a hex. "You...you can't possibly..."

"There are a great many things you thought I couldn't possibly do, once upon a time."

_Hard to believe Uncle Vernon gets to be adored 'Grampa Vernon.'_

_He's perfectly capable of love, just a very narrow definition of it. Also, he works better in small doses._

_Or no doses._

_He becomes slightly more tolerable once he accepts that he can be just as proud of Lizzy the football player and Devin the ballet dancer as vice-versa._

_I'll believe that when I see it._

The doorbell interrupted their standoff. When no one answered immediately, it kept ringing, chimes interrupting each other, as if someone with a nervous tick were sure that if he pressed the ringer one more time the door would open of its own accord. Uncle Vernon stalked to the door and flung it wide.

"Now see here!" he began.

The little wizard outside lifted his pointed beige hat in greeting. "A very good morning to you, Muggle relatives of Harry Potter!" He said cheerfully, and stepped inside as Uncle Vernon stood gaping. 

Behind him came Arthur Weasley, looking quite dapper in late-Victorian dark gray frock-coat with waistcoat, striped matching trousers, ankle-boots, top hat, and bristling coal-black sideburns with matching mustache. It took Harry a moment to realize that the ensemble was meant to be a disguise (Dedalus had apparently decided that an all-beige costume would serve just as well). He shook Uncle Vernon's hand vigorously. "Good to see you again, old chap! I trust everything is in order? Big day, you know, big day! Say, would you mind awfully if I popped into your washroom for a tick? I am fascinated by Muggle plumbing, you know. Simply marvelous. A model of Muggle efficiency and ingenuity. Why, wizards didn't even have toilets until—" 

But Harry didn't find out Uncle Vernon's reaction to that bit of Wizarding history, because Dedalus had spotted him and was shaking his hand with so much enthusiasm his entire body bounced with the motion.

He smiled down at the diminutive wizard. "Thanks so much for doing this, Dedalus."

"It's an honor, Harry Potter!" he squeaked.

Uncle Vernon's conversation broke in on them in a roar: "—isn't enough time to pack!"

"But surely you've packed already." Arthur's voice was aghast.

"What's this? What's this?" Dedalus hurried over. "You're not packed? Oh dear me." He turned to Arthur. "But it's no use arguing about it. Muggles' concept of time is very primitive, you know. One can hardly blame them for being a little slow. Not to worry!" —this last to Uncle Vernon as he drew his wand. "We'll get it sorted!" Then he began shrinking the sitting room furniture.

Uncle Vernon only seemed to catch up to what was going on when the telly fell to the floor, suddenly 1/100th of its normal size. "What did you do to the telly?!" he shouted.

"The telly?" Dudley came tearing out of the kitchen where he'd been hiding with Aunt Petunia. "What happened to the telly?"

"An enlargement spell will have it straightened out in a jiffy once we get to...where we're going," Dedalus soothed. "Ah, you must be Harry Potter's Muggle cousin!" They shook hands amiably.

"Put it back!" Uncle Vernon finally blew his top. "You put the telly back right this instant!"

"But that would be counterproductive, rather," Dedalus protested.

The front door banged open and Alastor Moody stalked inside, freezing everyone where they stood, including Aunt Petunia in the kitchen doorway. Uncle Vernon's blood drained right out of his face. "Ten minutes," the Devil Himself growled.

Then he jerked his head at Harry, and they went upstairs in the sudden silence to Harry's room.

Moody's magical eye made a 360-degree inspection of Harry's room as the wards went up, and he nodded his head in approval. He sat down at Harry's desk. 

"I hear you've been busy, Potter. Kingsley says you've been to see the Minister for Magic. You're sure he's taken the Trace off you?"

"I'm sure. I watched him do it," Harry confirmed.

Moody tapped his knee. "Lupin tells me you got to Mundungus before the Aurors did."

"Yeah. Have you drawn any conclusions yet about his killer?"

"Have you?" Moody threw the question back at him.

Harry quirked an eyebrow and took up the challenge. "He—and it was likely a he—was waiting for Mundungus inside the room. He was young; it was his first killing. It was also unplanned—otherwise he would likely have left the body in a more conspicuous spot. He went out the window afterwards, though he had to clean up his own vomit first."

He had barely finished speaking before he arched backwards and then twisted off the bed to avoid the binding curse Moody shot at him. He had seen Moody's right arm flexing in that particular way familiar to all Aurors and had reacted instinctively. He was far from top form, but he wasn't facing someone trying to murder him. He hoped.

"I didn't kill him," Harry pointed out calmly as his own wand slid into his hand.

"I didn't think you did," Moody responded, equally calm. He tried another binding; Harry repelled it with a slash of his wand.

"Do we really have time for this?"

"Eight minutes."

Harry huffed a laugh and let loose with a series of percussive localized explosions. The last made Moody wince and smashed his desk to splinters. Oh well, he wouldn't be needing it after today, anyway.

They circled each other. "You've got some power in you, lad," Moody conceded. "I see Albus kept you busy."

Harry only shrugged before tearing apart Moody's lash of fire with a razor-edged whirlwind. Then he conjured two more for good measure. They bore down on the Moody with a high droning whine.

Moody calmly swept them aside. He was a stand-his-ground type, boldly staking his position and declaring that he would defend it come hell or high water.

Harry—Harry was not. He danced around the ex-Auror, poking at his defenses, using physical as well as magical means to dodge and defend himself, unable to keep himself from grinning because this was _fun_. He couldn't remember the last time he'd dueled with someone, and damn, he'd missed it.

They both lost track of time for a bit, so the knock on the door came as a surprise. "Alastor? We're ready to go."

Harry's blocked _confringo_ and then Moody's diverted _incendio_ blasted into the wards, their combined energy making the walls tremble. 

"What in the—!" the door wrenched open, and Harry and Moody both pulled their next spells in time so that Arthur Weasley only ended up dancing an Irish jig with a tiny whooping snake in his hair instead of the Tarantella with a python coiled around him.

"Sorry, Mr. Weasley," Harry said contritely, banishing the snake. Thankfully Arthur's glare, refined by over a decade of practice with seven children, was directed at Moody rather than himself.

Moody tucked away his wand nonchalantly. "Just putting young Potter here through his paces."

Arthur's gaze took in the destruction at a glance: the smashed desk, the giant upside-down tortoise with its stubby feet waving in the air (formerly Harry's bed), the smoking posters on the walls, the closet door blasted off its hinges, the ruptured pillow spilling its polyester guts all over the floor.

"In a Muggle house?" Arthur hissed.

"It was a gas leak," Moody deadpanned.

Arthur sighed and set about putting the room to rights.

"Two minutes to go." Moody looked at the trunk in the corner which, since it had its own shields, had escaped the general destruction, then at Harry. "Right. I gather you already know where you want to go?"

Harry nodded. "Sirius' old house. But let's talk first?"

Moody returned his nod. "Better go down and say good-bye, if you're going to."

The door to Dudley's room was open, and he peeked inside curiously. The room had been swept clean down to the empty hangers in the closet and the dust bunnies which usually rolled around behind Dudley's computer desk. Downstairs, more of the same: even the sitting room lights had vanished from the ceiling to leave bare wires behind. Apparently Arthur had talked the Dursleys into unbending enough towards magic to take advantage of its conveniences.

"Well, boy, I guess this is good-bye," his uncle said gruffly, and this time Harry took the hand held out towards him before it could be withdrawn, giving it a short, firm shake.

"Good-bye, Uncle Vernon. Neither of us will miss each other, but I do hope you'll stay safe." 

His aunt shrank back a little from his approach, so he merely said, "Good-bye, Aunt Petunia. Be well."

Harry and Dudley looked at each other for a moment. Then Harry smiled, and they shook hands. "Thanks for, you know, saving me from that monster the other time," Dudley said awkwardly.

"Don't mention it. Bye, Big D. Stay out of trouble, will ya?"

There was a boom from somewhere in the distance. "Ah, that'll be our distraction," Dedalus remarked cheerfully. "In the car, everyone!" He wrung Harry's hand as he passed. "Good-bye, Harry Potter, and good luck!"

"Same to you!" Harry called after the diminutive figure hurrying the Dursleys out the door. 

"I'll see you soon," Arthur promised as he followed. A moment later the car lurched out of the driveway and onto the road with Arthur at the wheel and Uncle Vernon sitting bug-eyed in the passenger seat. It weaved precariously into the oncoming lane before straightening itself out and charging off in a cloud of engine exhaust.

Moody was seated at his restored desk in the quiet house when Harry went back upstairs. Harry sank down on the bed with a sigh, the reaction setting in, the hunger beginning to gnaw at him again. 

"I've been working on the wards at Headquarters," Harry offered. "It's slow going, but I think I'll be able to get control of all of them eventually. In the meantime I've opened up an Apparition point in the subbasement, so I suggest we finish our conversation there. But first I need your help to dismantle the Floo connection from the sitting room fireplace."

Moody didn't waste time demanding explanations. He stood and led the way downstairs, Harry and his trunk following. Harry paused to take one last look back. The room already seemed like it had belonged to someone else, a faded and distant memory he could pick up or discard at will with no feeling to color it. He closed the door behind him.

In front of the fireplace Moody and Harry nodded at each other and began to unweave the Floo portal from both ends, like two people working together to untangle a huge knot of string. Strictly speaking only Ministry officials were supposed to open and close Floo connections, but they couldn't precisely police everyone with a fireplace, so it was typically an overlooked offense.

When they were done a light sheen of sweat covered Harry's forehead, and his stomach was very much making its displeasure known. He gave Moody the coordinates to the Apparition point, and they went out together into the garden. The Aurors were absent from their posts, apparently still distracted by whatever diversion the Order had contrived. Harry raised his eyes to the despised house of his childhood for the last time and Apparated.

If Moody was at all nonplussed by the fact that Harry had opened his Apparition point within a cage of magic-nullification metal, he gave no sign. At least the darkness was always lit now by torches of everlasting fire. They went up into a kitchen filled with the scents of a full English breakfast, and Harry dropped happily into his seat with a murmured, "Bless you, Kreacher."

Afterwards they went into the drawing room to talk. "Kingsley tells me you've had visions," Moody began bluntly. "Is that how you knew to find Mundungus?"

"No," Harry answered, "but he had information I needed."

"About this quest that Albus left to you."

"Yeah."

"Which you can't tell anyone about."

"Which, if the Dark Lord knew about, will likely make him invincible. Truly immortal."

Moody considered that statement in silence. "Heavy stuff for a seventeen-year-old."

Harry shrugged. "It's been heavy since my parents were killed. Nobody likes it, but I'll do what I've gotta do."

Moody sat back and studied his face with both eyes. "You know, Potter, Albus always said you were our best hope, but I never saw it until now."

"The thing about pawns..." Harry gave him a lopsided smile, then sobered. "Are the Death Eaters hunting Order members?"

"The Death Eaters have always hunted Order members."

"Yes; but I meant—"

"I know what you meant." Moody glared into the empty fireplace. "Damn Snape, that traitorous snake. I don't know how he managed to fool Albus for so long when he was practically operating right under the canny old wizard's nose."

"So you think he's the one who told the Death Eaters who to target. There's nobody else you'd suspect?"

"Who else would Voldemort need? Snape knew all our plans and most of our contacts." (Harry signed inwardly; sometimes there was such a thing as a plan working too well.) "We've been running ourselves ragged putting up wards and Fidelius these past few weeks, but people like Mundungus don't like to stay in one place and refused to go into hiding."

"But the Death Eaters haven't occupied this place," Harry pointed out. "and nobody's tried to get in since I took over the outer wards a couple of days ago. Why is that?"

Moody's magical eye did a slow inspection of the room. "Now that you mention it, I don't think I ever saw Snape arriving alone," Moody brooded. "Maybe he didn't have Albus' entire confidence after all."

_I give up. Being Dumbledore must've been absolutely exhausting. Pulling strings, making people believe what he wanted them to believe, making his ideas seem like theirs. I already want to pull my hair out._

_Abandon all hope, all ye who aspire to the throne of puppet-mastery._

On the other hand, it was probably better for Snape's safety that no one in the Order doubted his treachery. "You'll still go after Mundungus' killer, won't you? In case he can tell us anything else?"

"Doubt it'll be much, but Mundungus will get his justice. And when I get my hands on Snape..."

Harry changed course. "If the Ministry falls, would the Order have the resources to build an underground rescue operation? Smuggle Muggle-borns and anyone else who is likely to be targeted out of the country?"

Moody's eyes stopped roaming and fixed on Harry with a steady stare. "You're talking about hundreds of people."

"Maybe a thousand or more, yeah."

"We don't have the resources to fight back and rescue people at the same time, I know that much."

Harry leaned forward. "Then forget about fighting back."

Moody drummed his fingers on his knee. "This doesn't sound like an intellectual exercise."

"Either way, humor me."

"If we lost the Ministry, travel by Portkey and Floo would both be out. That leaves broomstick, magical creatures, Apparition, and Muggle means. Short distances, or sitting ducks for long ones," Moody thought out loud.

"Do we have any contacts in France? Or—better yet, can we pool a list of resources among the Order?"

Moody nodded slowly. "How soon?"

"Never, I hope." Harry swallowed; his throat felt dry. "I don't know. Soon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> https://twitter.com/wizardingworld/status/1081242428105998336
> 
> (If you haven't seen this tweet before, I'm evil enough to want you to experience the WTF-ness of it with me.)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gotta admit I'm kinda disappointed that there's no tag for "Toilet Humor"--Arthur worked hard for that joke in the last chapter! But I did find one for "Slow Build"...does that mean you officially can't complain about Snape not showing up yet? ;) Let me know if you think there are any others I should add!
> 
> As always, thank you for your comments and kudos!

The days passed in a haze of fatigue punctuated by visits from various Order members with news. Cummings had been caught consorting with known Death Eater Antonin Dolohov, and both were in Azkaban, though how long they could be kept there was an open question. Several other Death Eaters from Harry's list had also been apprehended in various criminal acts, and likewise. Pius Thicknesse had broken down under the pressure of constant surveillance and had been remanded to the care of St. Mungo's. Everyone in the DMLE was being summoned to interviews with internal auditors, starting with the Pure-bloods.

And yet what was ostensibly a string of victories was making Harry even more uneasy. Hogwarts would be inaccessible until the Fall Term began, so the diadem Horcrux was out of his reach—as was the Elder Wand. He had no ideas as of yet for extracting the cup from Bellatrix's vault in Gringotts or for luring Nagini from Voldemort's side. Since the Minister for Magic knew of his connection to the Weasleys, he assumed the silence from that quarter was due to a lack of interest in communicating with him; he therefore concluded that it would be pointless to make another visit to the Ministry himself. All he could do for now was work on the wards and look through the Black library for anything that might help him.

His seventeenth birthday was upon him before he realized it. He woke late that morning to a soft trilling from his jeans. It took him a moment to recognize the sound. When he did, he dove out of bed and retrieved the mobile from his pocket and answered, "Hermione?"

Hermione's voice came through crystal-clear from the speaker. "Happy birthday, Harry!"

Harry sat back on his bed, smiling. "Thanks Hermione. Where are you?"

"At the Burrow, of course. Where else would she be?" another familiar voice butted in. "Hey, how come you didn't tell me you were a seer the last time you were here?" Ron, of course.

"Because I'm not a seer," Harry replied. He wasn't sure whether to feel happy or disappointed that Hermione had not gone to Australia with her parents. Perhaps a lot of both.

"You're gonna fill in the holes for me when you get here, right?"

"Oh, am I?"

"Yup. Mum's already finished your birthday cake. It's shaped like a snitch."

Harry laughed. He'd forgotten that. Then he remembered what else he'd forgotten: that Scrimgeour had visited the Burrow on his birthday with Dumbledore's behests. "Let me wash up. I'll see you in a bit."

Unlike his last visit to the Burrow, the day was beautifully clear, the sky a deep vibrant blue. Harry stretched long and hard, feeling his mood lift at the sight of the topsy-turvy house filled with so much love and warmth that it overflowed into anyone lucky enough to be invited inside. Hedwig flew down from one of the chimneys to greet him, and he stroked her feathers and cooed at her for a few minutes before giving her boost back up into the air and heading for the house.

He had already been spotted; the front door opened before he reached it, and welcoming hands pulled him inside. He was immediately engulfed in two—no, three pairs of arms, and he hummed in contentment. 

"Mmm. This is nice. Also: hullo."

Giggles vibrated against his shoulder, stirred his hair, tickled his neck. Then everyone drew apart and grinned at each other. Before anyone could speak, Molly bustled out of the kitchen to give him one last hug—"Happy birthday, dear! So good to see you!" before disappearing again.

By mutual accord, they all took seats on the sitting room couches and shared their news. Harry had had the most contact with Order members, but most of the arrests had made the Daily Prophet, so he was done in short order.

Hermione's parents were safely settled in Australia, their house rented out to a young college student whom they did not recognize as their daughter. Hermione's voice was very calm, but she looked out the window as she spoke. Harry twined their hands together and gave hers a squeeze before withdrawing. She looked at him and smiled a little with tear-bright eyes.

A shadow passed over Ron's face, but he picked up the thread with Ginny occasionally interrupting to fill in forgotten details. Basil Levinson-Vere, former head of the Hit Wizards, had been made head of the DMLE. By emergency proclamation, all large-scale DMLE missions now passed through Scrimgeour. Percy (that rotter) had gotten a promotion, but had returned their parents' congratulatory letter unread. Bill and Fleur were out for the day with Fleur's parents shopping for doilies or teacups or a bed (who cared), but would be back to make nauseating googly eyes at each other over dinner. Fred and George's shop was absolutely flourishing, but they still refused to cut their own siblings a deal, the cheapskates. They, too, would be in for dinner, so it would be best to avoid any source-unverified snacks lying around the house.

Ron had taken up letter-writing, and was driving poor Pigwidgeon to exhaustion with his daily correspondence, Ginny added. Ron turned red—"Why wouldn't I write to my girlfriend?"

—"Or your other 'fans'," Ginny added slyly, "especially the ones that use perfumed cerulean ink."

Ron hastily stood. "I've been practicing some new charms on the ghoul. He's got freckles now, wanna see?"

Ginny crossed her arms and groused, "You show off that ghoul more than Fleur flashes her engagement ring around," but didn't follow when Harry and Hermione got up to join Ron.

"How about we skip the ghoul?" Harry suggested in an undertone when they reached the fifth floor landing.

"Yeah, okay," Relieved, Ron lead them into his room and closed the door. "So what's the real news? You find any more of those Horcruxes, Harry?"

Harry shook his head. "Too early. Some other things need to happen before I can get to the next one. There's one at Gringotts, too, but I haven't figured out how I'm going to get at it yet. I know of only three successfully break-ins, and none of them are particularly instructive."

"Maybe Bill could help?" Ron suggested.

"No, don't tell Bill. He doesn't have independent access to the vaults, and I don't want to put him at risk. You-Know-Who won't hesitate to torture and kill anyone he suspects of being involved. That goes for both of you as well. It's only going to get more dangerous from here. So if you ever want out, I can give you false memories that should hold up to almost any probe."

"We know, Harry," Hermione said in a patient tone, as she might use with a professor who had repeated himself one too many times, and he gave her a wry smile.

He leaned back on Ron's bed with his head pillowed against his arms and sighed. "I'm not a seer, Ron, not really. I don't know what's going to happen now. A lot of things are already different from the history I know. Hestia, Mundungus... I'm just trying to save as many people as I can, and I'm already failing."

"Don't tell me you blame yourself?" Ron frowned.

Harry paused, thinking about what his therapist might have said to his admission. But: "A bit, yeah. I keep wondering if there are things I could've done differently...shifted about somehow..."

"That's a bit disrespectful, isn't it?" Hermione interjected. "It's like...you're making it all about you."

"Hermione!" Ron reproached. "You know that's not what Harry means."

When Harry didn't say anything, Hermione continued, "When you take on so much responsibility for other people, you start to deny them their own agency. Hestia had choices, too. She chose to be a Witch Watcher. She chose to accept the mission. She chose to fight. Don't take that away from her."

All of that would have been true, was true, except— "I had knowledge that she didn't. I could have told Scrimgeour about Malfoy, and I didn't."

"Why would the Ministry have been watching the Malfoys if they didn't at least suspect You-Know-Who might be there? I'll bet the Malfoys are at the top of a very short list. Hestia would've known that."

"But if Hestia had known she was going to her death..."

"But nobody does know, do they, and nobody expects to know. That's just life."

"Hermione." Harry sighed on a long exhale, then tilted his head back and stretched his arms towards the ceiling in a gesture of surrender. "You're a better friend than I deserve."

Ron made a sound of disgust and leapt onto the bed, poking Harry in his unprotected ribs until he shook with laughter. "That's enough doom and gloom, you two. We're supposed to be celebrating Harry's birthday!"

Hermione smirked at the antics of her two best friends. Then she pounced on the bed to join in the fun.

After that came presents and merciless teasing of Ron for his book, _Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches_ : "Way the Eleventh," Hermione read in oracular tones, her head propped up on her elbow, "Be mysterious. Witches love a certain _je ne sais quoi_ (I'm guessing the authors have no idea either) in their young wizards. Be sure to memorize at least five prophesies of a famous seer of your choice—the authors have had great success with Agnes Nutter—and utilize sparingly (oh, _sparingly!_ ) to spice up the conversation or re-strike a spark during conversational pauses. We suggest: _obscuro minima_...hair fluttering charm... _melancholia aeris_..." Hermione dissolved into giggles.

"Way the Eighth," Harry joined in, "Be yourself. If that doesn't work, lie."

"What?" yelped Ron, outraged. "You're having me on. It doesn't say that!" He snatched the book away and read: "Way the Eighth: Be yourself. Of course, even the mightiest of wizards can have off days. If you're feeling less than your best self, a few subtle glamours can make all the difference. After all, you want to give a true representation of yourself. (Well, that just makes sense, doesn't it?) We suggest: pimple-removal charm, cheekbone-enhancing charm, eye-enlargening charm, eyelash-lengthening charm... See, it doesn't say you're supposed to lie!" 

"Nope, not at all," Harry deadpanned, "my mistake. This is why I need glasses. Thanks for this, Ron. I'm sure it'll be really, super useful."

Hermione's elbow toppled, and she collapsed into laughter on the bed.

They went back downstairs after that. Ginny was lying on the couch with a book, looking a little put-out, but she made room for Harry to sit down next to her. "All right?" he asked her softly. She nodded, but wouldn't meet his gaze.

"You said you were working on the wards at Grimmauld? How is that coming along?" Hermione asked curiously, prompting a discussion so arcane that it sent both Weasley siblings into a stupor. 

Finally Ron jumped up and hauled Harry bodily to his feet. "Come on, Professor Potter, having one Hermione around is enough. Let's go play some Quidditch." Hermione rolled her eyes, but both she and Ginny joined the boys outside.

They'd barely gotten into the air when Ron stilled, his eyes unfocusing. "Wait, Dad's coming" he said, just as the kitchen door opened and Mrs. Weasley stepped out.

"Your father's coming back with the Minister for Magic. You kids had better come inside."

Hermione looked ruefully down at the ground. The one time she'd talked herself into flying, now she had to remember how to land just when she thought she'd found her balance on the broom?

Ginny nudged her broomstick closer. "It's okay, just lean back a little, pretend you're pulling on the reins of a horse," she suggested. 

Hermione had actually taken a few horse-riding lessons when she was little, so Ginny's advice made complete sense. "Thanks," she murmured as she gently touched down.

Harry was already making his way toward the house in the way he did everything now, with confidence and purpose, a poise that spoke not of youthful bravado, but of something so wholly a part of him that he was no longer conscious of it. Something earned.

Hermione wondered if anyone else had noticed. Ginny did, because Ginny had made it almost her vocation to notice things about Harry, but Ginny didn't know the reason behind the change. Ginny also suspected that Hermione and her brother did, which had made for a tense couple of days at the Burrow.

Then she saw the Minister for Magic arrive with Mr. Weasley, Percy, and two Aurors who immediately took up posts outside. Harry had already disappeared into the house. She and Ginny followed, passing by Percy who was heading out into the orchard. He ignored her tentative greeting.

Harry wasn't surprised by the visit. She'd been checking for his reaction more often, as if he were a barometer for how the day would go. It was irrational, Hermione knew, since Harry had admitted that events had already diverged from the history he knew—the history he had lived. She'd read his account of his escape from Privet Drive in the planner, the harrowing midair fight with Death Eaters, Mad-Eye Moody's death. It was surreal to think of the boy laughing beside her on Ron's bed as the same person who had gone through that. It was always going to be a little strange, wasn't it, to know that he was a grown man inside that seventeen-year-old body? Or was the strangeness the fact that being with him still felt just like being with the Harry she knew, without awkwardness or constraint?

"I need a word with Mr. Harry Potter, Mr. Ronald Weasley, and Ms. Hermione Granger," the Minister announced, looking about the room with a critical eye that immediately raised Hermione's hackles, though that was a term she didn't like to apply to herself because it felt much too dramatic. Then he looked directly at her with a cold and appraising stare, and she forced herself to return his gaze and decided that "raised hackles" was perfectly acceptable in this situation. "Arthur, is there anywhere where we can talk in private?"

"The sitting room...here..." Mr. Weasley stammered a little, eyeing the shabby couch, the cushions with their fraying threads, the scarred coffee table which had withstood seven rambunctious kids and maybe more besides.

"Fine." Scrimgeour said. "If everyone else wouldn't mind waiting outside." 

Arthur ushered Mrs. Weasley out the door without protest. Ginny shot a peeved look in their direction, but said nothing as she was turned out of her own house into the garden.

Scrimgeour started to say something, took in their stance (Harry leaning casually against the kitchen entrance with his hands in his pockets; Hermione next to him with her head lifted in challenge; Ron next to her with arms crossed), then apparently changed his mind and gestured to the sofa. "Let's sit down, shall we?"

Then followed a conversation that she was sure Harry had had before. He said nothing as Scrimgeour explained about Dumbledore's will, and though she seethed at the fact that the Ministry had withheld Dumbledore's behests from their rightful owners for a whole month—way overstepping their legal bounds, she kept quiet because he did. 

Harry's attention seemed inwardly focused as Ron accepted the Deluminator from Scrimgeour with awe, and Hermione _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ with burning eyes. Though she sometimes chafed at the fact that Harry's planner only opened once dates or events were past, she was glad it hadn't told her about this, so she could give Scrimgeour her honest bewildered reaction. Why had Dumbledore left her his book (for there was no doubt it had been his, and beloved) of fairy tales? Would Harry tell them if she asked?

Then it was Harry's turn, and she looked at the Snitch in Scrimgeour's hand with curiosity. Harry's face was completely blank. It seemed to make Scrimgeour suspicious, because he said flatly, "You know why Dumbledore left you this, don't you." It was not a question.

"Of course," Harry replied. He met the Minister's eyes straight-on—no challenge, no defiance, simply acknowledging some truth that they both already knew. The Minister dropped the Snitch into Harry's waiting hand without ceremony, and without ceremony Harry tucked it into the mokeskin pouch at his waist.

"And I suppose you also know," Scrimgeour said sourly, "that Dumbledore left you the Sword of Godric Gryffindor?"

Hermione inhaled sharply, but Harry responded casually, "Yeah. But I won't need it. It can stay at Hogwarts."

"Very kind of you, I'm sure," Scrimgeour replied, dry as the Sahara. Then he looked at Hermione and Ron squeezed onto the couch on one side of Harry. "Mr. Weasley, Ms. Granger, our business is concluded. I require a moment to talk with Mr. Potter alone."

Hermione waited for Harry's nod before untangling herself from the couch and leaving out the front door with Ron. They passed the Aurors standing guard, Percy fidgeting awkwardly next to them. Ron scowled at him, made a sound of disgust, and pulled Hermione away toward the garden. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were walking around the marquee set up for Bill and Fleur's wedding, talking in low voices. Ginny had disappeared.

"So what do you think that's all about?" Ron asked, gesturing to Hermione's book. She was already flipping through it, wondering if there might've been a written clue from Dumbledore somewhere that the Ministry had not deciphered. But no: though the pages were stained and dog-eared and obviously read through many, many times, they held no messages; if Dumbledore had made any notes regarding these stories, he had left them elsewhere.

"No idea," Hermione turned back to the cover and showed Ron the runes. "Is this...a rare book, in the Wizarding world?"

"That particular one might be; it looks pretty old. But those tales have been around forever. I remember my mum used to read us the story of Babbitty-Rabbitty. Ginny slept with a little stuffed rabbit for the longest time."

Hermione smiled and touched the runes. "I guess I should probably just wait and ask Harry instead of driving myself crazy trying to figure it out by myself, huh?" 

Ron clutched dramatically at his chest. "Hermione giving up on a puzzle? Oh, my heart, my heart!"

Hermione thumped him on the shoulder. "Do you feel...odd, at all, being around Harry?" she asked in a low tone.

"Odd? Why should it be odd? I mean, he's still Harry." Ron said, sounding faintly puzzled. "Why, do you?"

"I don't...know... Sometimes, when we're all laughing together, I feel like he's just exactly the Harry I've always known. And then he's sitting there talking to the Minister for Magic like they're equals, like he gets all of it, all the politics and the history and the way things really work, in a way I'm completely jealous of...and he's using magic I haven't even heard of, and I'm jealous of that too, and he turns into someone out of my reach. And then I feel like I'm losing one of my best friends, and I hate it..."

Hermione felt her voice start to get choked up and stopped. 

"Well, now you know how I feel, with one best friend who's a genius and another who's the Chosen One," Ron smirked.

Hermione laughed a little at that. "Ron, be serious."

"I am serious!" he retorted. "But we must still have something to offer him, don't you think? I mean, he didn't have to come at all today. He could've ditched us without a word, gone up to see Scrimgeour himself."

"If you put it that way..."

"And besides," Ron added, warming to his topic, "you think friends as brilliant as us are that easy to find? No way would Scrimgeour give Harry a present like _Twelve Fail-Safe Ways..._ " He trailed off, and his eyes got that unfocused look they sometimes did now, when he was seeing through the wards. "Something's happening," he muttered, and instantly corrected himself: "Something's wrong."

"Death Eaters," Harry's voice said at their elbow, low and clear, but speaking quickly, urgently. Harry himself was nowhere to be seen. "A lot of them. They've put up an anti-Apparition barrier. Go around back—find Ginny—broomsticks if you can—get out of range and Apparate to Grimmauld Place—use the coordinates I gave you earlier for the subbasement—warn others—Ron: your brothers, Hagrid, the Order—tell them to stay away, start getting people out—go now!"

"Harry," Hermione said, beginning to shake as the seriousness of the situation sank in, feeling the fear pound through her veins and encrust her heart with ice, "Harry, we can fight. We can help."

"No! GO!"

"Hermione," Ron's hand wrapped around her arm, hard. "There are Death Eaters coming from the back too. We have to go now or we'll be trapped."

They turned and ran. 

Ron's wand was in his hand, and Hermione drew hers. Harry had been right, hadn't he? She knew nothing about fighting a war. She felt helpless and afraid, and very ignorant. She and Ron tore through the garden, the sweet fragrance of oregano, thyme, and rosemary rising as they were trampled underfoot. They reached the low hedge and vaulted it together. "Over there!" Ron pointed, the Mage's Web leading him unerringly. Ginny was about fifty yards in front of them, hovering a few feet in the air on her broomstick. "Ginny!" Ron roared.

She turned her head and saw them and stared. Something moved, a heat shimmer in the air. Ron's _incarcerous_ missed, her _petrificus totalus_ didn't. His Disillusionment broken, the Death Eater appeared sprawled plank-like on his back, a black smudge against the vibrant green grass.

Ginny snapped out of her shock and dipped her broom as a bolt of spell-light flashed past her. Then she drew her wand and began fighting back.

By the time they reached Ginny they had knocked out five Death Eaters between the three of them. Ron climbed on one of the discarded brooms from their truncated Quidditch game and hitched up as close to the handle-end as he could. "Come on, Hermione, I think you'd better ride with me."

Hermione got on gratefully, and Ron rose up to hover next to his sister.

"What's happening?" she demanded.

"Death Eater attack. We have to get out of here!"

"What about mum and dad?"

"They'll be okay," Ron muttered without the least conviction. "They can take care of themselves."

"I want to stay and fight!"

"You can't help! We have to go!" he yelled. "Past the treeline quick as we can, then we'll Apparate to Grimmauld Place. Got it?"

Ginny looked rebellious for a moment. Then her face crumbled, and she nodded.

More Death Eaters appeared below. They shot off spells desperately as they maneuvered, mostly missing in the chaos. Hermione saw something hit the tail of Ginny's broom, sending her spinning through the air. A second spell caused her broom to corkscrew wildly. Hermione searched the ground frantically, saw nothing. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a white bolt streaking down out of the azure sky, talons outstretched. It hit something in mid-air, and a man sitting on a broom shimmered into view, his wand pointed at the owl.

"No!" Hermione screamed and cast at the same instant as the Death Eater, saw both man and bird fall— "Accio owl!"

Then Ginny righted herself somehow and they were through the edge of the Death Eaters' barriers as Hedwig's warm blood-splattered body thumped into Hermione's arms.

"Ginny!" Ginny looked over her shoulder and slowed, sliding smoothly up next to their broom. The Weasley siblings reached for each other at the same time, hands clasping as if they were performing some kind of Quidditch maneuver. "Now!" Hermione and Ron Apparated in midair, felt the latch in their navels, shouts distorting around them as they were sucked through a pipe-thread tear in space and spat out into dust and darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the cliffhanger! This chapter turned out quite long, as did the next one, which will be posted either end of this week or beginning of next week, depending on how much time I have for revisions. :D


	11. Chapter 11

It was no secret in the Ministerial offices that Rufus Scrimgeour thought of his predecessor, Cornelius Fudge, as something of a crackpot. The day Fudge had formally welcomed Rufus into his disgracefully vacated position, he had spent more than an hour pacing and ranting about the machinations of the great Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore, Rufus was made to understand, had foiled Fudge's attempts to protect the populace very step of the way. Why, if not for that duplicitous old wizard, Sirius Black would certainly be locked at this very moment in the deepest pits of Azkaban instead of mustering the Death Eaters at You-Know-Who's command.

Never mind that though Fudge had made all the right noises about the importance of the DMLE to law and order, he'd decreased their budget every year while he'd been in office. When Rufus had taken over, there had been barely enough resources to set up a Death Eaters task force, let alone search for You-Know-Who's lieutenants.

Besides, everyone knew that if Dumbledore had truly wanted the Minister's job, he would have had it three times over. But that, apparently, wasn't enough for Fudge, who saw Dumbledore's shadow in every crisis: the break-in to Gringotts which had strained Wizard-Goblin relations six years ago; the escape of Sirius Black from a locked and guarded room at Hogwarts; the abduction of Dolores Umbridge by a herd of centaurs; the unfortunate article in the Daily Prophet which had called Fudge an incompetent bungler who would happily let You-Know-Who walk unchallenged right into the Ministry days before You-Know-Who had, in fact, walked unchallenged into the Ministry. So that had been it for Fudge, and Rufus didn't care if he never saw the spineless fool again.

How much influence could the headmaster of a school (even the best school of magic in the world) have on the Ministry, after all? But eventually he had to confront the fact that Fudge's conspiracy theory about an underground organization led by Albus Dumbledore called, colorfully, the Order of the Phoenix, was real—and infinitely worse, that Dumbledore had somehow gained the loyalty of his best people.

Not to mention one Harry James Potter, a callow schoolboy who somehow had the nerve to defy the Minister for Magic while declaring himself Dumbledore's man. A callow schoolboy made famous by his miraculous feat of defeating the greatest Dark Wizard of their times when he was just a baby—the same Dark Wizard who was now back and seemingly none the worse for wear. Yet the Wizarding populace not only blithely disregarded a fact which should have invalidated Potter's hold on popular imagination, they seemed to expect a repeat and greater miracle out of him. Which would not in itself be a problem save for the fact that the Ministry and Rufus Scrimgeour himself were forced to bend to that irrational cultist faith and court Potter's favor. Only to be summarily rejected.

The most lucid of men might at this point be excused for thinking that perhaps the Headmaster of Hogwarts did hold a little too much power ensconced there in his ivory towers. Fudge, of course, had grossly overstepped the Ministry's prerogative when he'd sent his deputy in to take over the school, resulting in a backlash from the public that meant the Ministry had to step carefully even now. But surely there was a balance to such things, and Rufus rather thought he'd found it. 

It was disconcerting, therefore, to be forced to wonder if there was, in fact, some truth to the Cult of Harry Potter beyond what Dumbledore had set him up to be. Somehow, less than two months after their walk around the lake at Dumbledore's funeral Potter had grown a brain, verve, aplomb, and perspicacity. Not to mention the magic of a wizard decades older. It was enough to make anyone wonder if Dumbledore had been playing a deeper game.

In any case, let it not be said that Rufus could not adapt to paradigm shifts based on the presentation of new evidence.

"I've ordered a raid on Malfoy Manor," Rufus said to Harry Potter once his friends had closed the door behind them.

Potter's hands tightened around his knees, his only reaction. "And you're telling me this because...?"

"I remain unconvinced that it is not our best strategy to go directly after Lord Voldemort," Rufus continued as if Potter had not asked his question. "You predicted the infiltration of the Ministry by those sympathetic to the Dark Lord, and you were correct. The Imperius Curse makes it impossible to root out the infestation. The longer we wait, the worse off we'll be. I have worked with Basil for many years, but he is an ambitious man and one of Pure-blood descent, and I catch myself beginning to wonder if he would ally himself with our enemies to gain my position. We grow weaker by the day; the Ministry cannot survive under this cloud of suspicion and fear for much longer. The only solution is to cut off the head of the snake." Potter snorted softly at that, but made no response. Rufus continued, "I have given you very sound reasons for this raid. If you have reasons to gainsay mine, tell them to me now. There is still time to countermand my orders. I have young Percy here for that very reason."

Potter's green eyes blazed. "Are you really blackmailing me with the lives of your own people?"

"I am asking you for a clarity which Albus Dumbledore refused me," Rufus riposted with a surge of triumph, knowing that he'd finally gained the upper hand on Dumbledore's protégé.

Potter closed his eyes for a long moment. "On your head be it," he said finally. He met Rufus' eyes, held him fast, encircled his mind with a will of steel. A series of images thrust themselves into his consciousness: a girl with thick-rimmed glasses over a tear-stained face stared into the yellow eyes of a basilisk, and a young man screamed as his soul splintered for the first time; that same young man murdering his father at the dinner table, a homeless man in an alleyway, a peasant in a snowy field; a red-haired woman screaming, shielding her baby with her own body as she died; Voldemort rising from a cauldron, reborn of a bone, a severed hand, the blood of his enemy; the Dark Lord killing, killing, killing...

Their connection broke. Rufus sank back into the armchair, reeling, breath coming in short gasps. "But...but this is impossible," he stammered. "You're saying that Lord Voldemort is immortal, that he cannot be destroyed until—"

"Until I and every other host for the pieces of his soul are also destroyed, yes," Potter concluded, each word enunciated with quiet fury. "So call off the raid, Minister, before all those lives are lost for _nothing_."

Rufus swallowed convulsively around the toad sitting in his throat. "Percy," he croaked, and was ashamed to realize that the name had come out no louder than a whisper. He swallowed and tried again. "Percy!"

There was no response. The house was completely silent. Then his ears popped, and Potter sat bolt upright on the sofa. There was a loud ticking sound. He followed Potter's gaze to the clock hanging on the wall, each of its hands labeled with the name of a member of the Weasley family. The hands belonging to Molly, Arthur, Percival, Ginevra, and Ronald all pointed at "mortal peril."

"Linked anti-Apparition Jinxes," Potter muttered, striding to a window and looking out. He waved his wand, and every curtain in the house except the one at which he stood flew shut. "Kreacher?" he said to the air, but if he was expecting a response, the grimness of his expression said that he didn't get it. "Who else knew you were coming here, Minister?"

Rufus felt his own wand in his hand, a comforting weight. "Basil and Robards, but only Robards knew my destination."

Potter was already speaking again, but not to him: "...find Ginny; get broomsticks if you can..."

Rufus tried his own communication spells, to no avail. Not just an anti-Apparition barrier, then. He estimated that a plot of land the size of the Burrow would take fifty or more people to set up the barriers this quickly. They had no chance of fighting through.

Potter had drawn a shimmering length of cloth from the mokeskin bag at his side as he spoke. He looked back at Rufus, and his eyes in that instant could quarry granite. "Ginny, Ron, and Hermione will be able to get out on their own. Your Aurors and Percy haven't seen me, and it would be best that they don't. The Burrow's wards will withstand massed attack for five minutes, maybe ten with me to brace them. I have Auror training, I'm a good flyer, I have a Firebolt and I can take one person out of here with me. Issue that order to stop the raid. Your move, Minister."

He waved the curtain shut and disappeared. Invisibility Cloak, Rufus thought in the back of his mind. He didn't bother to ask Potter to elaborate on any of his assertions.

The front door banged open, and Larry came in with Arthur and his wife carrying Percy. The front door banged shut behind them. They laid Percy down on the sitting room rug.

"Fitzgerald is dead—AK'd. The boy took him down as soon as the anti-Apparition barriers came up, and I stunned him," Larry said to Rufus with disgust, pointing with his wand. 

"We saw it happen," Arthur agreed grimly, his jaws clenched, his face drained of all color. Beside him, his wife was weeping.

"Percy wouldn't—he's not in his right mind, Minister. He's always been such a good boy, he would never do this on his own."

 _Fitzgerald is dead_ "Imperius Curse, I think." He knelt down heavily next to the boy and pointed his wand. " _Rennervate._ " Percy opened dazed eyes. "Percy." Rufus snapped to focus his attention. "I need the order authorizing the raid on Malfoy Manor. Quick as you can, please."

Rufus kept his hand on his wand. Larry still had his drawn, but none of the Weasleys did. Could Larry have betrayed him? He could have been the one to cast Imperius on Percy, forced him to kill Fitzgerald, then stunned him. He'd been a fool to think he could rely on anyone with Voldemort's influence ravaging the Ministry from within like a plague. How ironic that the only person he knew he could trust absolutely was a seventeen-year-old boy. Dumbledore had won after all.

"Executive Order 10072," Percy reached into his bag of scrolls and came up with the raid order meekly enough. Larry stunned him again as soon as the scroll had left his hand, to his mother's dismayed gasp.

Rufus quickly skimmed through the document to make sure it was still the original text, then voided it with a tap of his wand and his magical signature. The scroll disappeared with a small splash of sparks.

There was a crackling sound as a multitude of spells hit the wards. Everyone froze for a second. Then Rufus commanded, "Auror O'Malley, check the Floo." Larry's attention diverted, he turned to the Weasleys. "Listen," he said in a low voice, "We're trapped, and our chances are grim. I think you know this. The DMLE is compromised, and I'm no longer sure who I can trust. I can tell you that Ronald, Hermione, and your daughter were forewarned and are making their way out as we speak. Their young friend is still here. He can fly one of us past the wards. The rest..." 

To his surprise, both husband and wife seemed to straighten with resolve instead of wilt in despair. "To know that our children have a chance is enough. Thank you, Minister," Arthur answered for both of them, and his wife nodded, wiping her eyes. His gaze darted to the unconscious body of his son, but he said, "You must be the one to go, of course. The Wizarding world needs your leadership."

From anyone else it would have sounded like truckle. From Arthur it merely sounded sincere. Who the hell _were_ these people?

"Floo connection's cut off," Larry reported. "'Least we won't have to worry about someone sneaking in here."

"This is the Department of Magical Law Enforcement!" came a _Sonorus_ -enhanced voice from outside the house. The assault had temporarily stopped. "We have reason to believe someone impersonating the Minister for Magic through the illegal use of Polyjuice Potion is inside this house. Surrender quietly and you will not be harmed."

They gave each other incredulous looks. 

"Well, Mr. Polyjuiced Minister for Magic, I suppose this means your game is up. Surrender quietly so You-Know-Who can skip the bothersome resistance and go straight to the torture," Arthur said, deadpan.

"Arthur!" Mrs. Weasley reproached. Rufus decided that he quite liked this man.

He suddenly hit upon a plan—a desperate gambit, perhaps, but what about this situation wasn't desperate? He explained as the crackle of spellfire resumed. There were the expected objections, of course, but he had a trump card up his sleeve (or rather, lying stunned at the foot of the coffee table). In the end, as he knew they must, the Weasleys gave way.

Arthur and Mrs. Weasley looked at each other and nodded. Percy levitated out of the way, Arthur sent a _reducto_ at the sofa which send it five feet into the air and come down again in pieces of stuffing, fabric, and splintered wood. "Should've replaced it ages ago," he commented.

Mrs. Weasley blew out the sitting room windows. "Been wanting new curtains."

Rufus left them to it and walked into the kitchen. Potter joined him a minute later. He closed the door behind him and took off his Cloak. They held each other's gaze for a moment. Potter said simply, "Thank you."

Rufus answered, "You'll take him down?"

"And die trying."

Rufus snorted, and Potter's lips twisted wryly.

Then Potter made him an offer which would at any other time have resulted in his arrest for suspected use of the Dark Arts. Now Rufus only considered and nodded. Strangely, instead of casting, Potter reached into his mokeskin bag and said, "Snitch." His hand emerged with the behest Rufus had handed him less than an hour (eons) earlier. Its wings fluttered lightly in his hand. He touched it to his lips and whispered something to it, and Rufus almost laughed. Of course. Of course he'd been a fool to think Dumbledore would have allowed his secrets to be plundered by a Ministry far beneath his cunning.

The Snitch's metallic shell cracked in half on Potter's palm. Within lay a dark pyramidal stone with a crack running through some sort of pattern carved on its surface. Potter took Rufus' left hand and placed the stone upon it, then touched his palm to Rufus' forehead, soft warmth to clammy skin. "Close your eyes," Potter instructed. "Now turn the stone three times and think of your son." Rufus had never been given to mysticism (the Cardinal Mysteries, his old Runes teacher had called it), but there was something about Potter—the knowing eyes in that young face—that he wanted to trust in this moment when all else had fallen away. Wanted to say: you who have seen into my soul and found all that I have blessed my life for, deal with me gently. He turned the stone three times blindly, thought lingeringly, longingly, of that beautiful boy he had pushed out of his mind for far too many years, and heard Potter's final instruction murmured into his ear.

He walked out of the kitchen to find Larry flicking his wand for some flourishes to the general ruin: a small fire here, lots of smoke and easily extinguished; a thunder-like roar there, all sound and no fury. "Don't flatter yourself," he said casually without looking over his shoulder at Rufus. "You're going to need someone with two functioning legs at your back."

Rufus swallowed the question half-formed on his tongue. Instead, he clasped Larry on the shoulder. "Bet you wish you'd taken that retirement when you had the chance, eh Larry?"

The Auror snorted. "And do what, shovel dragondung and grub in the garden for tomatoes all day? 'Least this way my boys will know their father went out clean, and with honor."

 _Fathers and sons,_ Rufus thought. _Fathers and sons..._ "They'll know."

The roar of the Death Eaters gathered outside was quite clear for a second as the wards buckled. The Weasleys stopped destroying their sitting room, and everyone looked at each other.

"Well, it's been a privilege, Minister," Arthur said, holding out his hand. 

Rufus grasped it firmly. "You're a good man, Arthur." He turned to Arthur's wife, eyes drawn to the white apron that completed her motherly look to perfection. 

"Oh," she blushed charmingly and put it aside. "Well, I expect I'm not quite what you had in mind for a comrade-in-arms in a fight like this..."

"It is an honor, Mrs. Weasley," Rufus said gravely, holding out his hand.

"Molly, please," she said and pulled him into a hug that smelled of buttery bread and fragrant herbs.

"Molly, then." He felt his face stretch unnaturally into a smile. He handed her his wand, hilt first.

Everyone winced as the wards shattered with a shriek of almost human pain. 

"This is your final warning!" the ostensible voice of the DMLE yelled.

They looked at each other one last time and nodded. Arthur shouted, "Wait! We're coming out!" 

Molly sought his gaze. "Please excuse me, Minister," and he wished he'd asked her to call him Rufus. With a neat flick of her wand he was levitated upward, and he allowed his body to go limp, trusting to her magic to carry him.

He floated out of the front door feet first, following by Arthur with Larry. A swarm of Death Eaters were approaching the house, probably a hundred or more. They stopped when they saw the Weasleys with their prisoners. A figure moved to the front of the crowd, a wizard wearing Rufus' face.

"Minister," Arthur stammered. "We, we have them. We have the impostors!"

"Well done!" Rufus' doppleganger crowed. "You will be rewarded."

"Thank you, Minister, thank you," Arthur gasped. "Please, my wife and I are just ordinary Wizarding folk. We can't—"

"Dolohov!" the fake Minister commanded. "Take the Auror—"

Rufus summoned his wand and stunned Molly, shoving her back thirty feet through the air with the hope of keeping her safely out of the fight. The blur at his back told him that Larry had done the same with Arthur. He whirled and shot the Killing Curse at Dolohov, hitting him right between the eyes. The Death Eater dropped backward soundlessly, dead before he hit the ground.

Chaos erupted around him. Hexes and curses screamed past him. His heart was beating a frenetic pace, but his head was clear. There was no longer need for strategy; his only aim now was to keep fighting for as long as he could. How long would Potter need to fly young Percy past the anti-Apparition barriers? Three minutes? Five? Arthur's playacting had already gained them a precious minute or two. The rest was his. That was all the victory he needed.

He hurtled both lethal and non-lethal curses (the former for convicted Death Eaters, the latter for everyone else) as fast as he could intone the spells, not so much slower than his Auror days. Larry was a pillar behind him, deep-rooted and unshakable. Their combined shields shivered under a hail of blasting spells but held. A sinkhole opened under a tight cluster of six Death Eaters and swallowed them screaming. His disarming spell sent a witch sliding backwards off her broom. Someone went flying through the air and bowled over three more. Someone else's robes caught on fire, sending him careening into a nearby pair who frantically beat at him in an attempt to extinguish the flames instead of summoning water.

But not everyone was so obviously inept. A cutting curse blasted through his shield and hit his bad leg, sending him crashing to one knee. Larry's _Protego maxima_ instantly covered them both, giving him time to clamber back to his feet. He could feel the hot sticky gush of blood flowing down his calf into his boot, but he felt no pain. They were both panting for breath now, but they weren't done yet. Not nearly done.

"You fools!" the wizard wearing his face shouted hoarsely. "Kill the Auror first! Leave the other to me!"

They continued to battle for every second. His wand heated and vibrated in his hand. A concentrated barrage sizzled like lightning in the space behind him. Larry fell and did not rise again. Something pressed like a giant's fist against his shields until they finally gave way like a veil made of papier-mâché, leaving him standing face to face with a perfect facsimile of himself, one with red slit-pupiled eyes. At that moment he understood truly, for the first time, not just in the abstract but down to bone and marrow, with an awe that was also terror, that this was no mere wizard, nor even an entity who was entirely human any longer. 

They'd put up a good fight. Larry would've been proud to know that two old mangy lions could still give these young pups what-for. They'd held out longer than he'd thought possible, and Potter was long gone. But Death was coming for him now. He let the useless splintered pieces of his faithful old wand slip from his hand.

"Ah Minister," the Dark Lord said in his sibilant caressing drawl, no more need for pretense with his prize in hand, "I am so glad you could join us. You see, there are matters of grave importance I am most eager to discuss with you."

Rufus Scrimgeour thought, _I am ready to die now._ He had not asked Potter if there would be pain, but he had been prepared for it. How could there be death without pain? But there was only a sudden silence, as if the whole world had stopped still for one incandescent moment. Laughter followed: the bright innocent laughter he had never thought to hear again. "Papa!" his Rowan, his world called, and he turned and saw him as he had been, twelve years old, his golden hair soft as an owlet's down feathers, his big amber eyes filled with love and trust. Then he was running lightly down a familiar alleyway, and Rufus followed him, knowing that this time— _this time_ —he would be there to stop the darkness from stealing his child away.

Voldemort's scream of rage shattered the eardrums of Bellatrix Lestrange, who was standing closest to him. But the Minister for Magic did not hear. He was lying where he had fallen to the grass, open eyes reflecting the deep blue sky.


	12. Chapter 12

Harry Disapparated with Percy at Grimmauld Place still gripping fiercely to his Firebolt. Unable to stop his forward momentum, he crashed into the closed cell door and bounced back across the dirty floor until his spine met the wall with a thud. Percy's limp body slid back into his and knocked the breath out of him.

"Harry!" Ron's voice said, "Sorry, sorry!" The door clanged open. Ron dragged Percy off and helped Harry to his feet. "It was Hermione's idea to keep the cell locked. That way we knew exactly who was coming in."

"Yeah," Harry gasped, reseating his glasses so Ron's face came into proper focus. "That's good thinking. Are you--"

"We're all fine." Ron's large hands descended onto Harry's shoulders tightly. "Harry, what happened to my parents? You—you can tell me. I can take the truth."

Harry loosely encircled Ron's wrists. "There's a good chance they'll be okay, but I can't tell you for sure. I'm sorry. Let's go upstairs and I'll tell everyone all at once, okay?"

Ron swallowed and nodded. "Harry, there's something you should know. Um..."

"What is it?" Harry asked, Ron's tension jumping to him quick as a synapse firing.

"A Death Eater almost knocked Ginny off her broom while we were trying to get out, and Hedwig went for him, and...and he hit her with something. Hermione has her now, but she's in a bad way. I'm sorry, Harry. I think Hedwig saved Ginny's life."

"Oh." Grief stole his voice for a minute. The second time around, and he still didn't manage to thank her, appreciate her properly, did he? He'd never deserved her. 

Ron peered with concern into his eyes. "You gonna be okay?"

Harry took a deep breath and nodded. "I'm okay. I'm just glad all of you made it out safely."

Ron tilted his chin at Percy. "So what do we do about _him_?" 

Harry considered. "He's under Imperius, which takes a maximum of five days to clear off. I guess we'll have to put him in one of the cells for now."

"Fine by me."

They dragged Percy into the next cell and locked the gate. Harry fed the Firebolt back into his mokeskin. "Gotta admit," Ron remarked with a certain maliciousness, "sometimes having your own dungeon comes in pretty handy."

"Harry?" Hermione came down the stairs carrying something white cradled in her arms. "I thought I heard your voice! I'm so glad you're safe!" He hugged her gently, and she buried her head against his neck. "I'm sorry about Hedwig. I put dittany on her wounds, but she was too badly hurt... At least I don't think she's in pain anymore."

"Thanks, Hermione." He took the warm bundle from her. "Can you give me a minute?"

Hermione and Ron went up, and Harry sat down on the bottom stair. He gently stroked Hedwig's feathers, watching the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Her eyes were closed, her wings slack, her feet curled in on themselves as if around a favorite perch.

"I'm so sorry, girl. You've always been so brave..."

_Isn't there anything we can do for her? If Muggle doctors can save a human being with a bullet in their brain with science, why can't we save one owl with magic?_

_Even if it meant using Dark Arts?_

_I don't care._

_Even if there will be a price to pay?_

_Are we really haggling over Hedwig's life?_

_This is the paradox of the Dark Arts: that in the end, the tragedy of unforeseen consequences almost always outweighs what is gained._

Harry watched Hedwig for a moment more, then reached into his mokeskin bag. "Stone," he murmured to it.

He laid the small dark stone on Hedwig's chest and covered it with his hand. Then he reached deep into his core and fed a strand of his magic into the stone, and through the stone into the owl. He saw the damage the Death Eater's spell had caused, the curse-torn muscles, ligaments, nerves; the shattered bones; the ruptured veins; the poisoned internal organs. He swept his magic through every place the curse had touched, burning out the darkness, repairing what damage he could, using his magic to fill in for what he could not.

When he was done he sat very still for a moment to let the dizziness pass. Hedwig stirred, and he blinked away the spots in front of his eyes to see the owl struggle to her feet on his lap. "Hey girl," he said softly. She nibbled his finger tiredly. "Yeah, you and me both." He thought for a moment and then called, "Kreacher?"

The old elf appeared, muttering to himself under his breath: "Kreacher's kitchen invaded, the black-hearted fiends. Cooking! Cooking in Kreacher's kitchen..."

Well, at least he was keeping his promise about not calling anyone a "Mudblood" or "traitor." "Kreacher?" Harry said.

"Master," Kreacher bowed, and muttered, "Master's friends are making themselves at home. Master's best copper pans left in the sink! Master's gold-bordered china plates used as cutting boards! Master's silver teapot dented! Master's—"

"All right, Kreacher," Harry interrupted what was shaping up to be an hours-long tirade. "We'll discuss that later, okay? For now can you take Hedwig up to my room and make her comfortable?"

"Master's owl hurt?" Kreacher took Hedwig from Harry as if she were a newborn baby, though she was at least half his height. His tennis-ball eyes were fixed on the owl's drooping amber ones.

"Yeah, but she'll be okay with rest."

Hedwig ran her beak gently through the straggly white strands coming out from one ear, and his face cracked into a wide grin. "Kreacher will take good care of Master's owl!" He disappeared.

Harry smiled bemusedly and shook his head. 

_The start of a beautiful love affair?_

_Don't start. My life is weird enough as it is._

The tension in the kitchen was palpable, and everyone fell silent when Harry entered. Tonks, Moody, and Kingsley had their chairs turned toward each other, apparently in the middle of a strategic pow-wow while Remus stared glumly into a teacup. Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were clustered on the other side, waiting for him.

He took a breath, feeling like reality was crashing down on him, that it had been all the while, like a slow-moving avalanche falling off a steep slope. He'd anticipated this, and yet... all those people with their lives turned upside-down in an instant, their unalienable rights stripped away by a monster who had no conception of how precious those rights truly were. 

Harry forced himself to speak the words: "Scrimgeour is dead. The Ministry has fallen." Nobody ventured a word, so he laid out the events for them from the beginning: Scrimgeour's visit, the arrival of the Death Eaters, the desperate fight, the ruse, Scrimgeour's sacrifice...

"Well, I guess he turned out all right, the flea-bitten old lion. Thought he was getting mighty uppity for a while there, no time to go out for a drink with old friends and all that," Moody remarked gruffly. He summoned the firewhiskey from the drinks cabinet and poured a glass for himself, then Harry. "Drink up, lad. You look like you could use it."

"Hey, what about us?" Ron demanded. "We were there too, you know!"

Moody blinked at the circle of expectant faces. "Oh hell, why not." He conjured glasses for them all.

"Now don't start," Tonks told her husband as he opened his mouth. "This is for fallen comrades."

Remus sighed but raised his glass along with the rest when Moody toasted quietly, "To fallen comrades."

Harry had never understood the allure of alcohol, the manic grip it could have on people. But he felt close to understanding just then as the heat trickled right down into the frozen core of him, swamping the spreading numbness. There was pain, but he could move again, think, plan, speak.

"Has anyone been able to get through to the other Order members? Bill and Fleur? What about Fred and George? Hagrid?"

"Yeah, we got 'em, told everyone to lie low 'til we know what's what," Tonks nodded. 

"Next order of business is to decide on a secure location for headquarters," Moody added.

"I was thinking this could still be headquarters," Harry offered.

"I'm opposed," Remus said quietly.

Everyone looked at him, but Remus was still staring into his teacup.

"Why?" Ron asked when the silence stretched.

"Isn't it obvious?" Remus said flatly. "We all became Secret Keepers for this place when Dumbledore died, and that's twenty-some-odd Secret Keepers too many."

"That may be true," Harry responded slowly, "but this place is still one of the best-defended buildings in Great Britain. Besides, my parents and today's events prove that Secret Keeping has its weaknesses just like every other defense."

"It's too dangerous," Remus argued. "Severus—"

"No, I agree with Harry," Tonks overrode him. "If Snape hasn't shown up yet, I doubt he will. We've already agreed that we've never seen him come alone, so he may not be a Secret Keeper at all. A location with a secure Apparition point like the one we have here is hard to come by."

"That's right!" Hermione agreed. "And if Harry can stretch the wards out over the front steps and make the building inaccessible from the outside, then only people who know the Secret or are accompanied by a Secret Keeper will be able to Apparate through, and they'll have to use the subbasement."

"Easy to guard," Kingsley put in.

"I like it," Moody gave his stamp of approval. "Not many places you can find with magic-nullification metal anymore. Mind you, it's highly illegal, but what the Ministry doesn't know... How long will it take you to finish the wards, Potter?"

"Three, four days at most," Harry answered.

"Fine. That'll be your top priority. We'll set up a backup headquarters and plan to retreat there if this one is overtaken. Any objections?" Moody looked around the table. No one said anything. "All right, Potter, you'd better go get working. The rest of us will finalize plans for getting people out."

Harry heard the scrape of a chair as he went down. He loitered by the foot of the stairs, telling himself sternly that impatience would do no one any good.

"Harry." Remus seemed surprised to find Harry waiting for him.

"All right Remus?" Harry responded carefully.

Remus started to say something, then looked at Percy lying on the floor of his cell. "Would you like to talk in there?" he nodded at the oaken door to the altar room.

Harry ran a hand through his hair. "No, not really."

"Oh. Well, I was thinking that it would be good to have a little privacy."

"Looks like Percy is still down for the count, so I think we'll be all right."

"But I'd rather—"

"Remus," Harry interrupted, "That room is my personal workroom, all right? You know the kind of energy that gets thrown about when you deal with wards. It's dangerous for anyone else to be in there right now."

There was an expression on Remus' face that said Harry had just given him the opening he was looking for. "Do _you_ know what kind of power you're dealing with? Look, you're not the only person who saw the potential here, Harry. Sirius asked Dumbledore to take a look at the wards when he first offered to make this place Order headquarters, and Dumbledore told him that it would be best to just add new ones. Dark Wizards have owned this house for generations, and the kind of power they put into this house is the kind of power that's best left alone."

"Needs must, I guess," Harry shrugged. "And in answer to your unspoken question, yes, I do know what I'm doing. If you don't believe me, feel free to test the wards yourself."

Remus frowned as if Harry had given a flippant answer to a N.E.W.T.s exam question. "But it's tainted magic, and it'll taint you too, if you're not careful with it."

Harry nodded. "I do know that. But I think it's worth the risk."

"But that's just it, don't you see? You don't have to do this. The Order can find another place to be headquarters, and you—"

"—and I can move to Mexico and live on a riverboat on the Rio Grande?"

Remus fell silent.

"Remus, I know you want me to be safe, and you want Tonks and your baby to be safe, but perfect safety is just not possible right now. The Burrow was under Fidelius, and protected by all sorts of security spells; it even had a Mage's Web. But none of that was enough, was it? As long as Voldemort is alive, there is no place on Earth that's out of his reach. The only way out is through. So I'm going to finish what Dumbledore started, and I'll save as many people along the way as I can. I need you to tell me now: are you with me?" Harry held out his hand.

After a moment, Remus' face relaxed. He gripped Harry's hand in his. "Merlin, Harry, your parents would be so proud of you."

Harry felt his throat tighten as he pulled Remus into a hug. "They'd be proud of you too. Remus, you're going to be a dad! And you're going to be _spectacular_ at it."

The Order had dispersed by the time Harry finished up for the day and closed the workroom door behind him. He never felt hungry when he was in there, but as soon as he left it he swore his stomach glued itself to his spine. He trudged up the stairs, dreamily hoping for Kreacher's _pasta alla carbonara_ and _arancini_ , or beef bourguignon or lamp chops or... 

"Harry! We made dinner!" Ron exclaimed when he caught sight of Harry, sounding very pleased with himself.

Harry stopped short at the sight of Percy sitting at the head of the table, apparently manacled to one of the legs. "Hi Percy."

"Hi Harry. Don't mind me. Just pretend I'm not here," Percy said heavily to the table.

"Erg."

"You mean _we_ made dinner, and you got underfoot and sliced the bread all wrong," Ginny accused Ron, setting a plate down.

Harry shrugged mentally and sat down at a chair with a plate already laid out. "What's for dinner?" Harry asked, sniffing appreciatively.

"Toasted cheese sandwiches," Hermione supplied, standing over a pan on the stove. 

"Thank you for cooking." He nodded at a bowl of purple blobs. "What's with the turnips?"

"Kreacher made it." "Kreacher's rebellion." "Kreacher protesting our occupation of his kitchen."

"Well, it's true, we _are_ occupying his kitchen," Harry mused. "We should probably have the Order meet in the dining room. Or the drawing room."

"That's another flight of stairs!" Ron complained, "and your wards make it impossible to Apparate inside the house."

"That's what your legs are for," Ginny pointed out. 

"Thank you for the turnips, Kreacher," Harry said mildly to thin air. There was a moment's pause as if the air were thinking; then an apple tart popped into being on Harry's plate. 

"Hey!" Ron protested. "Where's ours?"

"You threatened to pluck out the rest of his ear hair," Hermione pointed out.

"Only because he was waving the sauce pan at you!"

"Kreacher can't hurt any of my guests, Ron," Harry reproved, "please don't threaten him again." And to the tart, "I'm going to save this for dessert and share it with my friends, okay? Thanks, Kreacher."

"How come you're so nice to him all of a sudden?" Ron accused. "You used to despise him. He killed Sirius!"

"He didn't kill Sirius," Harry corrected. "Hermione was right, Sirius abused Kreacher as Kreacher's master. House-elves have no choice in who they serve, and that's wrong. They're sentient and self-aware beings just like us. The acceptance of slavery in Wizarding society is appalling, and debases all of us, and it needs to be stopped."

Hermione made a sound like a sobbing laugh. "Oh, Harry!"

Harry ducked. "Spatula!" Hermione laughed properly and set the spatula down on the stove, then hugged Harry tightly. "Just repeating what you've been telling us for years," Harry smiled into her hair. "I finally had enough time to figure out what you meant."

Ginny and Ron both looked a bit disgruntled when they separated. Percy was still staring blankly at his plate. Hermione went back to cheerfully toasting bread and melting cheese while everyone filled him in on Order news.

"Communication is one huge problem," Hermione thought out loud as she floated over the huge plate of toast and everyone hungrily helped themselves. "Kingsley is going to be our spy in the Aurors and try to let us know their targets, but he's one man. How do people who need help contact us? And how do we securely communicate between ourselves without resorting to something obvious like Patronuses?"

Harry had been thinking about this particular problem as well. He suggested, "Two-way mirrors?"

"Mmm, it's a possibility, but I can think of three problems with it." Hermione held up a finger, "One: they're enormously complicated to make," another finger; "two: one side of the link is permanently assigned when the mirror is created,"; a third finger; "three: you have to be looking into the mirror during the span of time when contact is initiated or you'll lose them."

"That's certainly not ideal," Harry conceded, "but maybe with some alterations to the spell? If it could incorporate elements of your Protean Charm, for instance. I wonder if Remus has any experience with that... I could help with the deconstruction part of it—it has some similarities to ward-breaking or -bending, but I'm rusty as hell with the reconstitution piece. It was never my strong suit."

"I've heard the difficulty of spell-creation increases exponentially with its complexity," Hermione bit her lip. "Two parts science and one part art."

"Try _The Enchantment of Spell Creation_ by Pandora Lovegood and _A Rudimentary Study of Spell Fundamentals_ by Ionius Cuffe," Percy offered, before mechanically shoving a piece of toast into his mouth.

Harry and Hermione looked at each other. "Thanks, Percy," Harry ventured. "Are you interested in spell-making, too?"

Percy was staring at his plate again and didn't answer.

"I wish we could ask the Half-Blood Prince," Harry mused out loud without thinking, and three pairs of startled eyes turned to him.

"You mean...Snape?" Ron growled. "Yeah, I'm sure he'd love to help the Order with our communication problems. Once he's done with the spell, he wouldn't even need to spy on us in person to report all of our plans to You-Know-Who."

Harry flushed. He must be tired to make a slip like that. Thank Merlin it hadn't been worse. "Right, yeah, I don't know what I was thinking."

Hermione looked at him curiously but didn't say anything.

Everyone fell into quiet contemplation as they ate. The appearance of Kingsley's lynx snapped the silence like a too-tight bowstring. "Turn on your wireless," it said in Kingsley's voice, and disappeared.

Everyone set down their food and paused in a heartbeat of surprise. Then chairs scraped back and toppled over as they made a mad dash for the drawing room. Ginny, the first to reach it, tapped the old wireless with her wand. Reception seemed to fade in and out for a few seconds before steadying.

_"—I repeat, this is an emergency broadcast,"_ Scrimgeour's voice said, and they looked at each other with wide eyes before sinking to a seat on whatever surface was closest. _"I am Rufus Scrimgeour, your Minister for Magic. My fellow citizens, if you are listening to this message, then I am dead or otherwise no longer able to serve you in my official capacity._

_Since I became Minister for Magic last year, I have worked hard to convince you, the Wizarding public, that the Ministry has contained the threat of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters. I must admit now, to my shame, that nothing could be further from the truth. Death Eaters have overrun the Ministry at all levels through the liberal use of bribery, persuasion, corruption, coercion, and the Unforgivable Curses. In effect, the Ministry now serves the agenda of Lord Voldemort. In my pride and stubbornness I have led you into the greatest and direst peril of your lives._

_The only person who stood against me in my folly was Albus Dumbledore, who fought the oncoming darkness until his last breath. Now his protégé Harry Potter takes up the cause in his mentor's stead. You know him as the Boy Who Lived; while he lives, the fight against the most powerful Dark Wizard of our times continues. To Mr. Potter I say this: take any port in a storm; the keys to the world hide in humbler form._

_My time here is ended. It has been the greatest privilege of my life to serve you. I leave you now with my fervent hope and a last commandment, which I pray you will obey above all else: live."_


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're about to head into warning tag territory in the next chapter, which is planned for the end of the week. Would anyone like me to post pertinent warnings either before or at the end of each chapter? Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.
> 
> Thank you as always for your comments and kudos!

_Live,_ Scrimgeour had said, and so his broadcast did, repeating faithfully on the hour, though the stations on which it could be found dwindled steadily until only two remained. These stalwarts of the airwaves might sometimes be interrupted for days on end, yet they somehow always made it back to reassure their faithful listeners that someone was out there still resisting, still keeping faith. One of them became Potterwatch. The other remained an underground music station pirating the Muggle world's biggest pop hits. 

The Ministry immediately commenced damage control. There were lengthy articles in the next day's _Daily Prophet_ about a Polyjuiced Rufus Scrimgeour apprehended with the help of one Arthur Weasley, Ministry official, and his wife. They would both be awarded the Order of Merlin, Third Class, with a promotion for Arthur. (Everyone at a certain residence at Grimmauld Place sagged with relief at the news. There might also have been cheering and a few tears, but no self-respecting red-headed young man would admit to the latter.) 

Another article detailed the technical difficulties the Office of Magical Broadcasting and Media Relations was having with a pre-recorded announcement which had been improperly cleared for the air. The Prophet must have been under some sort of injunction not to mention or even allude to the actual message, which resulted in wording so vague that it gave the faint impression the Ministry was declaring war on the High Druid Council of Ireland for poaching seahorses, or alternatively that dirigible plums had been discovered to have a miraculous clearing effect on brain clouds. This second view was enthusiastically endorsed by _The Quibbler_ , which airily remarked that it had published several articles praising the health benefits of dirigible plums over the years. Then, of course, there were the conspiracy theorists who claimed that the article supported their claim that Japan had already been picked as the site of the 2010 Quidditch World Cup, months ahead of the start of the official selection process. But then, those nutters would seize on any opportunity to cry conspiracy.

One of the few people who knew approximately everything about both the Emergency Broadcast and the subsequent attempts to invalidate its message was up and dressing in the dark on the morning of the aforementioned Daily Prophet issue before it had even hit the newsstands. He had already selected and laid out everything the night before, feeling like he'd gone years back in time to his first pre-dawn raid as an Auror, heart racing with a mixture of uncertainty and excitement, but knowing that he was doing what needed to be done.

He slipped quietly down the stairs to the kitchen. The wavering light of a single candle told him that someone was already awake—Kreacher? But no. The head that lifted from the table at the sound of his footsteps had as much resemblance to the old elf's as a turnip to a potato.

"Harry?" Hermione whispered.

"Hermione, what are you doing here?" he whispered back.

"Waiting for you, of course. You're going to the Ministry, aren't you?" She stood. She had tied her hair back and was wearing a t-shirt and jeans: loose enough to fight in, fitted enough not to get in the way. 

"Hermione, no," Harry protested. "I can't take you with me."

"Harry, listen," Hermione said calmly, though her knuckles were white on the back of her chair, "I'm not here because I think it'll be great fun or an exciting adventure; I just think it's necessary, even if I'm scared. The best way will be to get in and out as quickly as you can, and for that you need help. I've emptied all my books out of my bag; I'll be able to carry nearly as much as you."

Harry hesitated, torn. Speed and capacity had been his main concerns, true. He'd already debated, and discarded, the option of waiting for the rest of the Order members to arrive that day; but by then Voldemort could be well on his way to consolidating his complete control over the Ministry. 

He blew out a breath. "I keep forgetting how much of a pain it is sometimes that you're so clever."

She gave him a small smile. "Keeps you on your toes."

"Always," he smiled back. "All right. Stay close. We'll take the Aurors' entrance. The Records, Documents, and Forms Room is on Level Three. We'll check there first. If we don't find anything, we may have to risk Scrimgeour's office. If we're discovered and separated, make your way to the fireplaces on Level Eight and come back here immediately, got it?"

Hermione nodded. 

"Let's go."

They went down to the subbasement. The outgoing Apparition point was just outside the cell containing the incoming one, roughly demarcated by a white chalk line on the floor. He would have to make it a bit more formal soon, now that more people would be using it. They tiptoed in to avoid disturbing Percy asleep in his own cell. 

Harry reached into his mokeskin bag. "Invisibility Cloak." He handed the shimmering fabric to Hermione. "Get under that." She accepted the Cloak without demurral and unfurled it over her head. 

"All right?" Harry asked softly.

Hermione took his arm in a firm grip. "Yes."

An instant later they were standing in an alleyway in central London. No streetlights pierced the gloom, and only passing cars disturbed the silence. They both stood stock-still and listened for a long moment, but there was no indication that anyone had anticipated them.

"This next part is going to be a bit unpleasant. The Aurors' entrance goes through a sewer pipe. Once I open the cover, it's best to jump in as quickly as possible. Ready?"

"Ready," came Hermione's whisper. 

She took his outstretched hand. He Disillusioned himself, then touched the manhole cover with his free hand. It opened to the twist of his magic, and he pulled her in with him into the dank darkness.

Harry could not ever recall a time when the Aurors' office had been completely empty. When he'd worked in this office, someone had always been stubbornly following up on a lead or frantically writing up an overdue report or about to go out on a mission or just returned from one. But tonight no light shone on any of the desks or in the meeting rooms. There were no voices lifted in greeting or complaint or good-natured ribbing. The entire place was still, a barren maze devoid of life. He cast a revealing spell, but it only confirmed what his other senses had told him.

"Come on," he whispered, and they went hand-in-hand through the labyrinth, down the corridor, down the seldom-used stairs, up another corridor, then finally into the Records Room. He warded the door before turning the lights on and canceling the concealment charm. Next to him, Hermione gasped. Her eyes were wide when she emerged from the Cloak's hood.

"How would Scrimgeour have expected us to find anything in here?"

The Records Room was as cavernous as the Hall of Prophecy downstairs, and arranged similarly with endless shelves holding stacks of scrolls, some of them clearly centuries old. It was certainly a good choice for a hiding place if you wanted to conceal something in plain sight.

"Scrimgeour' message said 'form,' so let's start with those shelves."

"How many are there?" Hermione asked.

"Three hundred and twenty-six, last I knew," Harry answered. "Probably fewer than that now, actually."

"That's not so bad," Hermione responded thoughtfully, looking up and down the nearest and calculating. "If there are a hundred or so forms per shelf, that's only three shelves we need to search through."

"No, I meant three hundred twenty-six shelves," Harry corrected.

"How can there be over three hundred shelves of _forms_?!" Hermione almost shrieked.

"Because nobody ever bothers to get rid of the old ones, they just create new ones," Harry shrugged.

Hermione looked personally offended by the lack of organization. "Let me guess, they keep making you fill out a new form if you use the wrong one?"

"Why'd you think a third of the working Wizarding population is employed by the Ministry? Well, other than the need for certain numbers of people to perform ritual magic, which is actually a big part of it."

Hermione stomped over to the large ash-wood table set up in the middle of the room, muttering under her breath. Three enormous leather-bound books sat on the table. She opened the slimmest, titled simply, "Forms."

Harry wandered around the room, keeping an eye out for anything unusual or out of place. Could those old quills on the table be more than they seemed? He touched one; no tingle of magic met his fingertips. How about those dusty ribbons lying in a pile on the bottom shelf? He picked them up—no luck there either. The crumbled pieces of paper in the wastebasket? 

Harry was about to reach inside when Hermione called, her voice tense with excitement, "Harry, come look at this!"

He hurried back to the table to peer over Hermione's shoulder. She had the book opened to a page near the back, entitled 'Travel Request Forms.' "Here," she pointed at a section with a heading of "Weather" illustrated by an ominously dark cloud which occasionally emitted flashes of stylized lightning in the precise shape of Harry's scar. 

"Blizzard investigation, Belgium," he read. "Cyclone investigation, Belgium. Hurricane investigation, Belgium. Tornado investigation, Belgium. Typhon investigation, Belgium." The list continued on for various countries for three more pages. "I never realized weather was such an exciting field." They grinned at each other. "Shelf FT7-W3."

Hermione closed the book, and they rushed to find FT7. When they reached the W3 section, Hermione gasped. The shelves were filled with hundreds of scrolls arranged in little piles labeled by country. Hermione picked one up and unrolled it. It was pre-printed with the weather condition and the name of the country. A tiny line of instruction said, "Enter the desired date and time of travel on the dotted line. This request must be approved by authorized personnel." The same cloud and flashing lightning image from the book punctuated the words.

Harry slid his finger against the parchment and felt the spark of magic leap like a static charge to his skin. He smiled. "This is it, Hermione. You found them!"

She beamed back at him. "Do we have time to label them before we go? Otherwise they'll end up a jumbled mess."

Harry considered. "Better to spent a little time sorting them out somewhere safe than be caught here," he decided. "Our first priority is to get these home."

"All right," she agreed, exultant, already setting down her beaded bag. He walked to the end of the section, opened his mokeskin, and began feeding scrolls into it in a steady stream as she did the same from the other side.

There was a faint sound, a distant susurration Harry would have dismissed if he hadn't been listening for it. "Hermione, get under the Cloak," he whispered. She picked up her bag and disappeared. Harry Disillusioned himself, then turned off the lights and removed his charms from the door.

The sound resolved itself into a pair of footsteps. The door opened, and the lights flickered back on. "The Records, Documents, and Forms Room," said a voice Harry didn't recognize in a chilly baritone. "I do hope you're not planning to waste much more of my time this morning."

"I must be sure, don't you see?" answered a second voice, this time a familiar one. "The Dark Lord has entrusted me with this most important of tasks, and I must not fail him." Surprise jolted through Harry when he recognized the speaker as Lucius Malfoy. Gone was the smooth venomous disdain which formerly underlined his every word. Just now he was a broken man, humbled by a wizard gifted with a reservoir of cruelty far more vast than his own.

Harry stood absolutely still and took slow, steady breaths through his nose. Who was the second wizard? Would he be able to tell that someone had looked through one of the books? That someone had disturbed the pile of quills? Or worse: was it possible that they, too, were following the clues Scrimgeour had left for him? Had he fallen into a trap created by his own arrogance?

"I am certain that someone's been in the Auror Offices," said Malfoy. Harry's heart rate accelerated as the two men approached the center table. With the element of surprise on his side, he was fairly sure he could take them both. But before one of them could call for reinforcements? If Death Eaters took the Atrium and blocked their way out... No, he couldn't risk someone raising the alarm unless discovery was eminent. 

"Here," the unknown wizard said to the accompaniment of rapidly-flipping pages. "Active-duty Aurors. RL1-A8."

Harry's fingers loosened their death-grip on his wand. Auror records were sealed, which meant the wizard accompanying Malfoy must either be someone of rank in the DMLE or knew enough to break through the protections. Not that breaking through took much, given the Ministry's lackadaisical approach to security for years under Fudge.

He heard the two men walk through the Records section, followed after a pause by the rustling of paper. "I was right," Malfoy exclaimed. "Look, I count seventeen Auror left in the building. We have sixteen accounted-for; that means one is still at large. Here, take a look and tell me who's missing."

"Malfoy," the other man growled. "I do have my own job to do."

"Yaxley assured me of your cooperation; shall I tell him that he was mistaken?" Malfoy's voice had lost its silken edge of old, but none of its menace.

"You can tell him anything you like." The cold disdain was more than a match for Malfoy's. There was a pause during which Harry could imagine the two men glaring at each other. He was somewhat surprised when the man gave way: "Harper. That's your missing Auror."

Harry's memory jarred as Malfoy muttered, "Those bunglers. Send a message down to the Carrows, will you? At least they'll enjoy the hunt."

"Send it yourself," came the cool reply, followed by footsteps walking away and the sound of the door opening and closing.

"That arrogant little shit," Malfoy snarled. Something banged into one of the shelves; by Malfoy's hiss, Harry concluded that the action had hurt him more than the sturdy ash-wood. "He'll know soon enough not to cross one of the Dark Lord's inner circle." The door banged shut behind him.

Harry waited for both pairs of footsteps to fade before warding the door and canceling his concealment charm. Malfoy had left the light on, so at least they wouldn't have to worry about that anymore. Hermione emerged from the Cloak with a question written all over her face.

Harry opened his mouth and closed it again. Two warring impulses, equally insistent, pulled at him. 

"Harry, if you have to go, go. I can finish up here."

Harry ran a hand through his hair. "That would be monumentally unfair to you."

She didn't argue; instead, she asked, "What happens to Harper, if you don't go?"

Trust Hermione to see right to the heart of things. "In my time, Harper died during the fight for the Ministry."

"Then we both know what you need to do, don't we?"

Harry exhaled and nodded, his mind moving rapidly ahead now that his decision was made. "Finish up with the scrolls, then take the stairs down to Level Eight and Apparate out from there. No, wait. They may already be monitoring the fireplaces, and a single person going through at this hour will be too suspicious. Better wait on the landing, and we'll Apparate out together. But if anything happens, or I'm not there in thirty minutes, don't bother about me, just get yourself out. Clear?"

Hermione nodded. "Clear."

Harry pulled her into a brief hug. "Do _not_ put yourself into more danger than you have to."

"Of course not," Hermione responded primly. "That's your job."

"Just as long as we're on the same page," Harry grinned. He Disillusioned himself, listened at the door for a moment, and slipped silently into the corridor.

Harry faced two significant problems in his rescue mission. One: he didn't know where Harper was. Two: he didn't know what Harper looked like. On the other hand, he'd spent half a lifetime in the DMLE, which meant he knew how Aurors think. Harper's first instinct would be to break out the captured Aurors, which meant they were probably heading down to the holding cells on Level Ten. Plus, someone there probably had a good idea of where to find them...

Oh, who was he kidding? If he could get all of the trapped Aurors out, he'd do it. But could he do it without jeopardizing his primary mission? That was the question.

He stepped into stairwell and caught sight of someone's head halfway down the first flight of stairs. He closed the door and backed away silently, praying that he hadn't been heard.

"Who's there?" a firewhiskey-smooth low baritone demanded, and he recognized the coldly arrogant voice that had been speaking with Malfoy earlier. He silently swore.

Footsteps approached. "If you come with me quietly I won't hurt you," the voice promised.

Should he try for the lifts? But that would lead the man right past the Records Room. On the other hand, he knew his concealment charms were good, and the man had heard him rather than seen him. Harry stepped quietly behind the door right before it opened.

Bloody hell, the man was tall. Harry probably only came up to his shoulders; he wondered if the wizard had any giant blood in him.

" _Homenum revelio._ "

Well, if he had giant ancestry it certainly didn't affect his intelligence. But he hadn't called the Death Eaters yet; maybe he wanted the capture for himself? Or was he not a Death Eater after all?

No help for it. The only way out was through.

Harry abandoned the Disillusionment and snapped up a wide-area silencing barrier around them. He would only be able to hold it for a few minutes, but hopefully that would be enough. He stepped forward.

The man's eyes widened at the sight of him. "If you move aside quietly I won't hurt you," Harry promised in return.

"I'm afraid that is not possible," the man replied courteously, almost regretfully.

Huh. He had a feeling he should know who this bloke was, but Harry couldn't place him at all. His blond hair and ice-blue eyes made him look like a Hollywood-style Russian spy from one of those gun-and-testosterone-filled shows that Dudley liked so much. His wand was one of the longest Harry had ever seen, easily fourteen inches, of a gold-twined dark amber wood Harry was sure would have fitted right into his collection of exotic trees. He was in his late twenties or early thirties; his face was handsome enough if you were inclined toward ancient Greek statues, but bore no familial resemblance to anyone Harry could immediately recall; he was dressed in simply-cut robes of good material—no, make that charm-imbued cloth, a whole different tier of expense; his accent was upper-crust, and though that could be adopted later in life, he didn't think it was the case here. "You seem to know me, but you have me at a disadvantage. May I ask your name?" Harry inquired.

"It's not important."

Someone trying to stay neutral? That may have worked in the last war, but not this one. "Look, I'm here to save lives," Harry tried one last time. "You may not agree with me about how power should be distributed in our society, or the place of wizards in the wider world, but surely it's not such an outrageous statement to say that no one should be killed or imprisoned simply for how much magic they were born to?"

A shadow crossed the man's face, but he said, "I must stop you. I'm sorry."

So much for neutral. Yet he made no move to attack. Harry wondered what would happen if he simply walked past him into the stairwell. Then again, his adversary was the one with time—not to mention backup—on his side. 

Harry fired a wordless stun, which the other wizard sidestepped effortlessly. Size and intelligence _and_ agility. Sometimes life just wasn't fair.

"Expelliarmus," he tried. The spell splashed harmlessly against the other man's shield. His wand remained poised but still.

Oh great, just what he needed. He hated dueling people who turtled, especially when he was running short on time. He drew back and watched the man's eyes watch him. On the other hand, impatience would play right into his opponent's hands.

Harry shoved his irritation down and poked at the man's defenses with a slew of minor jinxes and hexes, mocking: _I know what you're doing._ From the inside, Harry knew, it would feel like being surrounded like a cloud of buzzing flies. He circled closer. The man's eyes narrowed. The air hummed a split-second before a bolt of lightning flashed out at him. He dodged, the scent of ozone in his nostrils and heat like a vivid sunburn against his face. He retaliated instantly with a lasso of flame, but the man's shields had snapped back up just as quickly. Merlin, he was fast. 

Harry pressed closer still, knowing instinctively that this was not someone accustomed to retreat. His shielding was textbook-perfect, a smooth diamond-hard dome with no weak spots at all. Harry was within two feet of his opponent. He stretched out his shields and layered them over the other man's, synchronizing them as Aurors did when they wanted to mesh defenses, like two voices harmonizing on a familiar tune. He watched carefully for signs of recognition, but the man's face only registered surprise and suspicion, as if he could not quite believe that Harry was leaving himself completely open. But before he could react Harry deliberately destabilized his own shield, the resulting energy ripple vibrating between the inner and outer barriers with greater and greater force until neither of them could hold on any longer, and both shields shattered with a discordant screech. 

Deaf and blind and feeling as if someone had taken a jackhammer to his cranium, Harry nevertheless managed to cast a stunning spell. The nameless man crumbled to the ground without a sound. Harry smirked through the pain. Like a four-move checkmate, that trick wouldn't work a second time, but at least now he could say his many headaches earned while learning group-shielding as an Auror had been worth it.

Harry waited a moment for his vision to clear, then reached inside his mokeskin for a magically-enhanced asprin. Not nearly as effective as a pain-killing potion, sure, but infinitely easier to obtain, store, and carry around.

He levitated his erstwhile opponent into the stairwell and left him propped up behind the door. He hesitated for a moment over the other wizard's wand, but decided, in the end, to leave it. If there was any doubt in the man's mind about what he was doing, then maybe, just maybe, he could be persuaded to switch sides. He prayed that he would not come to regret his decision.

The Level Ten corridor was empty, but as he crept closer to the holding cells he could hear voices:

"What happened to Amycus and Alecto?"

"Auror-hunting."

"Didn't we get 'em all?"

"Boss says no."

"Well, he's the boss."

Ah, Crabbe and Goyle, Sr. Who had left the door unlocked. And were now passing a half-empty bottle back and forth of what he was sure was not butterbeer. Sometimes luck really did favor the brave.

Crabbe was framed quite perfectly in the half-open doorway. He toppled over without a sound. Goyle stood so quickly his robes got tangled in the legs of the chair. He went down cursing (the ineffectual kind), and Harry stunned him where he lay. He picked up Goyle's wand, then Crabbe's, before canceling his Disillusionment charm. 

There was a babble of voices from the cells, and he estimated around forty people held in the tiny space. Harry raised his voice to ask, "Does anyone here know Auror Harper?"

"I work with her," an Auror in his mid-thirties pushed his way to the front. He had dark olive skin, a long face balanced by a wide mobile mouth and keen dark-chocolate eyes beneath a long sweep of wing-tipped eyebrows. "I'm Ismaël Khan."

"Harry Potter." He swept back his hair to reveal his scar. The room fell silent at his name. "I'm trying to find her before the Death Eaters do. Any idea where I should look?"

"She was heading down to the Department of Mysteries before everything happened. I think that's why she wasn't taken along with the rest of us."

"Can you tell me what she looks like?"

"Do you know Auror Shacklebolt?"

Harry nodded.

"She's a bit darker than him, long braids down to her waist, 5-feet-7 or so, stocky, 12-inch willow wand. That enough to go on?"

"Yeah, thanks. Are your wands in here?"

Khan pointed at a cabinet. "It's warded, though."

"What about the cell keys?"

"With the bloke with long blond hair," Khan answered.

"Lucius Malfoy," someone else supplied.

"All right." Harry handed Khan Crabbe's wand. "Have a go." He gave Goyle's wand to a silver-haired witch standing near the front of the other cell whom he vaguely remembered as Hit Wizard who had taught one of his Auror training classes. She nodded her thanks at him, and he Disillusioned himself and trotted out the door.

He found to his chagrin that he was panting a little by the time he had climbed back up to Level Nine. Well, at least the Ministry's ambient magic was enough to sustain his magical core, which was the more important thing right now. He opened the door as slowly and silent as he could. The first person he spotted was Lucius Malfoy. He was standing with his back to Harry, watching a dark-skinned woman who could only be the missing Auror Harper battling both the Carrows at the same time, and successfully holding the siblings at bay as she fought to reach the door to the Department of Mysteries. They must have caught her as she was heading for the stairs.

Malfoy saw an opening as twin blasts to the Auror's shield knocked her to her knees. He raised his wand. _Oh no you don't,_ Harry thought, and stunned Malfoy from behind without a compunction in the world. He levitated Malfoy's wand and the cell keys out of his inner pockets into the air as he stepped over the prone body. The keys he tucked into his belt; the wand he snapped over his knee. He tossed the pieces to the floor.

The Auror had fought her way back to her feet, but was retreating steadily before the Carrows' onslaught. Her hair and brow were damp with sweat, and her exhaustion was plain to see. " _Expelliarmus_!" Alecto flew through the air to land almost at the end of the corridor, and Harry snatched her wand neatly out of the air before stunning her. The Auror's _Petrificus _caught Amycus in his moment of distraction, and she knelt to take his wand from his rigid grasp before wiping her face with the back of her free hand.__

__Harry ended his concealment charm and hurried toward the Auror. She had the sort of ageless face that, for a witch in her prime, meant she could be anywhere from her late thirties to early sixties. He offered her a hand up. "Auror Harper? I'm Harry Potter."_ _

__Her grip was firm as she pulled herself to her feet. "Harry Potter," she repeated in a deep contralto. "What are you doing here? This is no place for a schoolboy."_ _

__He ignored that last, handing her Alecto's wand and the keys he had taken off Malfoy. "A bunch of people from the DMLE are in lockup downstairs. They have wands, so be careful going in. You all need to get out of here as quickly as you can. You-Know-Who is going to complete his takeover of the Ministry today, and you don't want to be here when he comes."_ _

__His rescue mission complete, his thoughts returned immediately to Hermione. Was she safe? Was she waiting for him? Had she made it to Level Eight?_ _

__His hand was on the door to the stairwell when Harper called quietly to him, "Thank you."_ _

__He hesitated for a second. "If you or anyone you trust ever need help, contact Auror Shacklebolt," he said over his shoulder, and then began climbing the stairs two at a time. He was panting heavily by the time he made it to the door to Level Eight, but grinned when he saw Hermione's face emerge from the Invisibility Cloak on the landing._ _

__"Harry!" she whispered. "Are you okay? Did you find Harper?"_ _

__"Yeah," Harry beamed at her, "you?"_ _

__Hermione smiled back with justifiable triumph. "I got all of them!"_ _

__"Let's go home, then, 'cause I'm starving! Think Kreacher would cook an English breakfast for us if I asked?"_ _

__"Harry! After that beautiful speech last night?"_ _

__"You can't eat beautiful speeches," Harry sighed mournfully, "alas. Maybe just pancakes?"_ _

__Hermione laughed. They sprinted across the silent Atrium, stepped into the nearest fireplace, and Apparated together._ _


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please jump to the end notes to see specific warning tags for this chapter.

They tested the first of the Portkeys that very same day. 

At 11:50 A.M. precisely, Dirk Cresswell arrived with his wife and sons on the beach near Shell Cottage with two owls, a Kneazle, two toads, a jarful of tadpoles, and various pieces of luggage. Bill was there to greet him, and the two wizards conversed in Gobbledegook for a little while. Then Bill produced a scroll labeled "Thunderstorm, France" and dated "August 1, 1997, noon." It was signed by "Harry James Potter," though to the uninitiated it looked rather like "Llomylovs Poltir."

Dirk gave the scroll a somewhat dubious look, but since Bill had assured him that they had a backup plan, he had his family gather 'round and squeeze in with all their pets and bags. For a very uncomfortable three-and-a-half minutes everyone strained to keep ahold of the parchment without tearing it. Then noon chimed somewhere in the whitewashed house over the sand dunes, and the Cresswells were whisked away over the Channel.

Two hours later Bill retrieved a message written in Gobbledegook from the beach: "All is well. Have asylum and settled in. Much gratitude. Contact if ever in need."

Bill grinned and sent his Patronus off to Grimmauld Place with the news.

Harry spent most of the day hunched over the dining room table signing weather investigation travel forms, until Percy, on his way back to the cells accompanied by Remus, looked in and commented briefly, "Why not designate some people to be your signatory?"

Why not indeed? Harry slapped himself on the forehead ruefully. All Ministry forms allowed delegated signatures unless otherwise specified on the form itself, but of course he'd forgotten that bit of minutiae in the intervening years (and because he'd never taken much advantage of it when he'd had the power to do so.) Shortly thereafter Hermione and Remus took his place at the table, and Harry went off to wrangle wards for the rest of the afternoon.

Towards evening Ron Apparated with Ginny back to the Burrow for Bill and Fleur's wedding. Ginny didn't look at all happy about leaving Grimmauld Place, but she couldn't very well refuse to attend her own brother's wedding. Hermione and Harry sent along their well-wishes, and Harry, at least, breathed a sigh of relief that he wouldn't be spending hours wandering around wearing someone else's face again.

Harry and Hermione weren't the only guests who couldn't make it to his wedding, but Bill counted himself a very lucky man indeed to have his entire family safe and almost all of them there to see him off at the end of the night to the start of his new life with the woman he loved. 

The day after the wedding, Harry found Moody and Kingsley in the sitting room arguing in low tones. "Now is not the time to be insisting on your independence like a cantankerous old man," Kingsley was saying as Harry entered, the frustration in his normally imperturbable voice indicating that this was not the first time they'd tread this ground. "You're vulnerable on your own; that incident with Crouch three years ago proved it. And you know Death Eaters will start blasting their way through our protections with the might of the Ministry behind them. So why not take Tonks up on her offer and move in with them at their new place?"

"Because this cantankerous old man doesn't want to deal with a daughter of Cygnus Black, a werewolf, and a woman who's about to have a baby living in a house the size of your flat," Moody retorted irritably. 

"So add some Wizarding spaces," Kingsley suggested.

"I specialize in destruction, not construction," Moody shot back.

Kingsley rolled his eyes and appealed to Harry. "Talk some sense into him, won't you? Tonks offered to put him up, and he won't hear of it."

"Stay here then," Harry offered. "There's more than enough room, and if you need more I can easily expand into Wizarding space for you."

Kingsley raised his eyebrows at Moody as if daring him to find objections to that.

Moody huffed and Moody growled, but finally conceded that he'd been outmaneuvered. "I saw that!" he snapped when Kingsley winked at Harry.

Harry grinned and changed the subject. "I wanted to talk to both of you about Ollivander, actually," he began. "You-Know-Who's had him locked up in the dungeons at Malfoy Manor for months, and he's going to die down there if we don't get him out."

"The wand-maker?" Kingsley asked, surprised. "What does You-Know-Who want with him?"

"He thinks Ollivander can help him find the Elder Wand," Harry answered.

"Fairy tales," Moody dismissed in disgust. "We can't go risking precious resources trying to rescue one old man from enemy headquarters. It's a suicide mission."

"What if it isn't?" Harry asked, and explained about Dobby.

"That's quite a trump card," Kingsley pondered.

"Still not worth it," Moody shook his head.

"Maybe not if you still think we're going to infiltrate the Death Eaters and take the Ministry back somehow. But that battle's already lost. What if the primary mission of the Order now is just this—to rescue people whenever and however we can?"

"You don't give up a pawn with a clear run at the Queening square for a knight," Moody growled. "It's bad strategy."

"I'm pants at chess," Harry shrugged. "Besides, it's a bad analogy. You're not giving up the pawn, you're just blocking the Queening square."

"He's got you there," Kingsley smiled slowly.

"So you've already made up your mind, eh lad? And this is you giving us fair warning of your next ridiculous stunt?"

"At least I'm giving you fair warning this time," Harry deadpanned.

Kingsley chuckled, and Moody glared. "Fine, let's come up with a plan. And then we'll talk about your responsibilities in keeping the Order informed of your activities."

Once his takeover of the wards was finally complete, Harry set about making some long-needed adjustments, like allowing (limited) Apparition within the house, extending the protections to cover the front steps as Hermione had suggested, and stretching them up high enough so Hedwig could get some exercise. 

Speaking of Hedwig, Hermione had given him a _look_ when she'd found the snowy owl in Harry's room, none the worse for wear after her run-in with the Death Eater at the Burrow. So he had taken the opportunity to explain Dumbledore's behest to her along with the existence of the Deathly Hallows. He wasn't surprised that this Hermione was no more impressed by the legend than the Hermione of his other lifetime had been.

"But Harry, this couldn't actually have been made by Death," she protested, peering at the small cracked stone lying in the palm of her hand.

"Probably not," Harry agreed. She shivered, and quickly handed it back to him. Looking at her unhappy expression, Harry encouraged, "Say what you want to say, Hermione."

"The...healing you did on Hedwig. It's classified as Dark Magic, isn't it? Because you've...redirected a part of your magic into her...'grafted' it, maybe? And you need an external energy source to seal the two together. In the old days people made sacrifices to raise the required power: animals, magical creatures, house-elves, sometimes even Muggles or wizards, if the energy need was large enough. If it had been your soul instead of your magic, she would be a Horcrux."

"Yes," Harry nodded.

"So if the Resurrection Stone was your energy source, and it wasn't some mystical creation of Death, then..." Hermione looked like she couldn't bear to state the conclusion to her deductions, so Harry did.

"Then there was sacrifice involved in making the Stone. Possibly human, possibly more than one. It couldn't have a connection to death in the first place if there had been no death involved."

"You knew that when you used it?"

"I did," Harry confirmed, watching her face.

"That doesn't bother you?" Hermione asked in a small voice, looking away.

Harry thought about the many, many answers he could give to that, all of them true or containing shades of truth. "I'm not seventeen anymore, Hermione," he finally replied, "and this is what it means. If I could kill Lord Thingy right now and be rid of him for good, I'd do it with zero guilt or regret. I acknowledge the horrifying exploitation that likely went into making the Stone and that laid the foundations of the power this house draws on, but I will not let that deter me from utilizing them to protect people and to save their lives. Not for the 'Greater Good,' which can be twisted into whatever meaning you choose, but to protect and save. That is all."

Hermione nodded. "I need to think about it on my own for a bit, but thank you for telling me."

On the sixth day after the battle at the Burrow, Harry went down into the subbasement to find Percy hunched over on his mattress, staring down at his wand as if he had no idea what it was used for. Harry went through the open cell gate and sat down next to him. 

"Hey Percy. There's still some breakfast left, if you want to come up and eat," Harry offered when Percy gave no indication that he had noticed Harry at all.

"I'm not hungry." A pause. "Thank you."

"Why don't we look into the free bedrooms, then, and you can pick one? Most of them don't have great views, but we can enchant a window if you'd like."

"I...I'd rather just stay here. Can't I do that?" Percy turned pleading red-rimmed eyes on Harry. "I feel safe here."

Harry laced his hands around one upraised knee and regarded Percy carefully. "What do you remember?"

Percy looked away. "Everything," he responded dully. "I remember everything. Revealing the Minister's location. Killing the Auror. Casting the Killing Curse with my own wand. And it felt good, like I was doing exactly what I needed to do. I would've killed the other Auror too, if he hadn't stunned me. Oh God," Percy began to sob. "I wish he'd killed me. I wished they'd finished the job rather than leave me like this. I wish you'd left me there, Harry. I wish you had brought the Minister out instead of me."

"Do you know why Imperius is one of the Unforgivable Curses?" Harry asked once Percy's tears had subsided a little. "After all, it doesn't kill you or cause you pain. It can feel pleasant. Even pleasurable."

Percy recoiled. When Harry just waited patiently, he ventured as if he were trying to answer a difficult exam question, "It takes away your free will. It puts you under another wizard's complete command."

"While you're under Imperius, you effectively cease to exist in the world," Harry said bluntly. "It takes away your autonomy and replaces it with another person's will. It turns your body into an object to be manipulated, to be used to satisfy someone else's desires. It makes your mind and your magic enemies to yourself. It steals away your sense of self and everything that makes you human. And the pleasure makes you want it. That's why the recommended quarantine period for Imperius is five days, because even when someone isn't directly under its effect, sometimes they'll actively seek out the person who cast the spell to feel it again, like a drug." Percy had curled into a fetal position in a corner of the cell, his head buried beneath his arm. "I know you feel like you can't trust yourself right now. Like your body doesn't belong to you, and you'd scratch yourself out of it if you could. Percy, it's not your fault. Listen to me. It's not your fault. Scrimgeour knew that. That's why he asked that you be the one to fly out with me."

Percy shook his head frantically. "It is my fault. It wasn't just the Burrow. I've done other things. I betrayed you. The Order. I...I..."

"Told them about Hestia Jones and Mundungus Fletcher?"

"And Dedalus Diggle," Percy whispered. "I overheard my parents mention that they were people Dumbledore trusted, and I told Corban Yaxley because I thought it would please him. He didn't even need to ask. It's my fault they're dead."

"Would you tell him now? I'm sure it would please Corban Yaxley a great deal to know that Kingsley is working for the Order right under his nose."

"N-no! No, but that's different."

"Because you're no longer under Imperius?" Harry suggested gently.

"But I should have been prepared for it. It was even on my N.E.W.T.s! And there are lots of wizards who can resist it. Like you. People say that you learned in your Fourth Year."

"There are wizards and witches who can resist Imperius, sure. There are even Muggles who can resist Imperius. Maybe twenty percent of fully-trained Aurors can. Fewer in the general population. But here's the caveat. Nobody is one hundred percent immune to Imperius one hundred percent of the time. Not even Moody, and he's the best there is. We're all vulnerable sometimes."

"I _hate_ this," Percy whispered. "I hate feeling like this, like I don't even know myself anymore, like someone just scooped me out and left a hollow skin-balloon version of me behind. I wish I could just forget everything and start over." He sat bolt upright. "Harry, you can Obliviate me. Please. Just take these memories away so I can be back to normal."

Harry shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, "but it doesn't really work like that. The feelings, the trauma—they don't just disappear. And it'd be worse because you wouldn't be able to remember why you were feeling these things in the first place. You'd still have nightmares. You'd still look at yourself in the mirror and feel like you can't recognize yourself. You'd still flinch from shadows, and wonder sometimes if the person sitting across from you at the dinner table is going to pull a wand on you."

"Then what do I do?" Percy almost screamed.

Harry just sat there for a moment, thinking of another young man with his life derailed before him, pleading for an answer to the same question. "Cry," he responded at last. "Howl. Grieve for Auror Fitzgerald. Grieve for yourself. Eat something, even if you throw it back up later. Claim a room for yourself so you can do it all over again behind closed doors. When the loneliness begins to swallow you whole, open your door and come join us. You don't have to be okay. You'll feel like there isn't enough air in the room, when the reality is you can't breathe because you're drowning. Do it anyway. Drown yourself in other people's problems for a while. There are still people who need your help, Percy. However much you can afford to give. And in time you'll heal. It may take years, but I promise you'll heal."

Percy covered his face with his hands and began to sob again as Harry got up and left him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery
> 



	15. Chapter 15

Percy took to avoiding Harry, but he did at least move into one of the second-floor bedrooms and, eventually, to join them for meals. He began to follow Moody around, craving clear, concrete instructions like "Make a list of Order safe houses, their protections, and when their wards were last renewed." Later, attracted by Hermione and Remus' quiet voices from the library, he researched communication spells with them, the intricate abstract work and their unquestioning acceptance a balm to his wire-strung nerves. Harry breathed a sigh of relief and dialed back the close monitoring of Percy's health he had established through the wards.

Death Eaters had broken through the Order's protections into Dedalus Diggle's house in Kent to find the diminutive wizard long gone and the place empty. Dedalus' reply to Moody's news that it had burned down ran: "Forget about the house, I've an emergency on my hands. Have learned through Muggle method of observation and deduction that carrots and oatmeal form essential basis of Muggle diet. Almost out. Must obtain more. Please advise." A puzzled Moody had shown the note to Harry, who'd laughed until tears ran down his face. "Try Tesco's," he finally managed to gasp.

Comic interludes notwithstanding, Harry was getting restless. He was no closer to Hufflepuff's cup, the Horcrux that he still had no ideas, good or even somewhat credible, about obtaining. He decided to venture into Diagon Alley to, as the professionals put it, 'case the joint.'

Moody immediately nixed the idea. "Diagon Alley is crawling with You-Know-Who's people right now. I take it he wasn't happy with the loss of the wand-maker or the disappearance of his entire shop."

Harry took the pointed remark in good humor. Their plan had gone off without a hitch, and Ollivander was now taking a long-deserved vacation with his family in the ancient and historic city of Kyoto, Japan, which also, not so incidentally, hosted one of the finest extended healing retreats in the world. He couldn't be sorry about that, even if it had cost them their access to Malfoy Manor.

"What about Mykew Gregorovitch? Were we able to get a message to him?" Harry asked.

"I gave Jason and Alison Denbright a note for Viktor Krum when they left for Bulgaria yesterday. Best we can do right now," Moody responded.

Harry nodded. He still wasn't sure what to do about the Elder Wand. Should he attempt to make himself its master, assuming he found a way to face Draco? Carrying that treacherous wand felt wrong to him, its risks far outweighing its rewards, whether or not he could get it to obey him. Should he allow Voldemort to obtain it as he had the last time? That course seemed more dangerous yet. Should he destroy it? He wasn't quite certain he'd be able to go through with it—and anyway, doing so would put Snape's live at risk if Voldemort came to claim it.

He put aside that impossible dilemma for another, deciding that he wasn't quite ready to give up on his excursion. He resolved to spend a day snooping around Gots & Grint Private Bank, the Muggle subsidiary of Gringotts. 

It turned out not to be very difficult at all. Unlike its blatantly ostentatious Wizarding parent, Gots & Grint appeared to have been designed for near-invisibility. Though located practically at the center of the City, it stood on a tiny dead-end side street, and its front was practically indistinguishable from those of the solicitors' offices and financial consulting LLCs around it. Even the guardian to its single Muggle-style vault followed the theme: according to Bill, Gots & Grint used a ghost instead of a dragon. Harry cast a glamour on himself and staked out a window seat at the café conveniently located across the street to observe.

Since Gringotts was careful to keep its Muggle branch completely separate from Wizarding affairs, Gots & Grint was subject only to Muggle laws, not Wizarding. This in turn meant that the Ministry had very little knowledge of what went on here. 

And what went on, Harry soon learned, was troubling. Take a people with no loyalty to Wizardkind (nor, indeed, to humankind) and plop them down into the midst of the most aggressively morally-agnostic institution in existence, and this was what you got: the agents of dictators, warlords, crime lords, drug cartels, Saudi princes, corporate tax-evaders, and international arms-dealers going through a modest gold-lettered door in the middle of the City to worship at the altar of money.

Oh, he couldn't be absolutely sure, of course. Those few he thought he recognized were much younger than the Interpol photos and profiles he had studied. On the other hand, what kind of bank served a clientèle that was 70% middle-aged and 90% male? Though they had gotten racial diversity down, he had to give them that.

"Is this seat taken?" a voice asked from across the table. He didn't know what expression was on his face when he turned, but the other man's eyes widened.

Harry barely managed to stop himself from doing a double-take. "Sorry. P-please," he choked out, "help yourself."

_What? What was that?_

He was staring. Was he staring? He hid himself behind the book he'd brought as a cover.

_It's Sol Campion! I mean, a way younger Sol Campion, but I'm pretty sure it's him. He's just a couple of years older than me—er, you. He was making a name for himself as the best thief in the British Isles while I was moving up the DMLE ladder, but he disappeared for good just before I became head of the DMLE. Which was too bad, because I rather wanted a go at him. Rumor has it he's a Squib, which should have made him an easy target, but he was never caught. I've never actually met him in person before._ He felt a professional thrill run through him as the chair opposite his scraped back and the other man sat down with a tall sweating glass of iced coffee in one hand and a scone in the other. 

_Are you sure that was a **professional** thrill?_

To be fair, Campion with his large luminous hazel-green eyes and delicate heart-shaped face crowned by dark tousled curls was one of the most beautiful men he had ever seen. His small amused smile held just the right amount of conspiratorial mischief to intrigue. No wonder he'd been named _Witch Weekly_ 's Most Charming Rogue for twelve consecutive years. 

_It's professional if I keep it professional._

_That's why you're waxing poetic about his smile._

_He was an artist. And though he was occasionally vicious (towards wards, mostly), he never killed anyone. Plus he only stole from the rich._

_Right, because the poor don't have money. There's a napkin, why don't you ask him for his autograph?_

_I don't remember being this snarky as a seventeen-year-old._

_Of course you don't. You didn't have to share your head with a frankly embarrassing old-man version of yourself. This is the only way I'm stopping myself from slithering off into a mental ditch and dying of mortification._

_At least your vocabulary's improved from our acquaintance._

_Piss off._

"That's not a book you see much around here," the other man commented, nodding at the small volume in his hand. "Is that the German you're reading?"

His composure recovered, Harry gave him a small smile and laid the open book down on the table, turning it so he could see the text. "Yes, but I'm cheating."

> I live my life in circles;  
>  My rings expand ever wider across the world.  
>  I do not know when I will complete the last  
>  But I give myself to the trying.
> 
> I circle God, the primordial tower,  
>  and I circle thousands of years long.  
>  Yet I still do not know  
>  if I am a falcon, a storm, or an unending song.

The man read the hand-written notes next to the German, the unexpected reverence in his voice making Harry's breath catch in this throat. "That's an original translation, isn't it?"

"It is, but not by me," Harry admitted, a pang shooting through his chest.

"I've always loved this poem." The other man returned the book to him and held out his hand. "I'm Sol."

"Harry." They shook.

"So, Harry," Sol asked with an eyebrow arched inquiringly, "are you a copper?"

Harry huffed a startled laugh. "Why do you ask?" he questioned in return, intrigued.

"You have a certain...shall we say... _je ne sais quoi_ about you."

Sol was still holding his hand. Now he bent to press his lips against Harry's wrist over his pulse-point—long enough, Harry realized, to measure his heart beats.

_I'm guessing he doesn't want to keep it professional,_ his snarky seventeen-year-old informed him smugly.

"Even if my heart were beating faster, how would you know the cause?"

Sol smiled and released him. "Maybe it's enough for me that it is beating faster. And that I know you don't mind being approached by men."

"I don't mind being approached by men, but I'm also not looking."

"Pity," Sol pouted playfully. "Guess it's just not my day. Here, have a scone, my treat. You look like you could use it." He pushed his pastry across to Harry and stood. "Bye Harry, maybe we'll see each other again sometime." And he walked out the door.

Harry blinked at the scone. Then he scooped it off the table along with his book and dashed into the loo.

When he emerged from the café under his Invisibility Cloak, Sol was just turning the corner at the end of the street. Harry sprinted to catch up.

He was too far away to see what exactly happened next. There was a black car with dark tinted windows parked at the bank's private back entrance. There was an indignant shout, followed by a shrill cry of "Thief!" Something arced glittering against the afternoon sun like a rocket which had failed to achieve escape velocity. Sol's slender figure disappeared rapidly down the street with two of the bank's security guards fast on his heels. As Harry drew closer, he could see a goblin shake his head in disgust, climb into the car, and drive away.

_Legendary thief, you say?_

_Well, everybody's gotta start somewhere._

The building across the street from the bank's back entrance was apparently in the midst of renovations, which meant it was also conveniently equipped with scaffolding. Harry carefully climbed his way up to the roof, which turned out to be a tiny rooftop garden. He sniffed the mingled scents of flowers and herbs appreciatively and meticulously looked into each of the pots lining the edge in turn, emitting a small satisfied "hah!" when he found the object he was looking for in a large stone urn of delightfully fragrant gardenias.

_Could've just accioed it._

_What would be the fun in that?_

He tucked the Invisibility Cloak away and sat down on a wrought-iron bench, then broke Sol's scone in half, nibbling on it contentedly and enjoying the serene scenery three stories above the bustle of street-level traffic. About thirty minutes later, a bright yellow hardhat climbed into view, following by the rest of Sol in borrowed construction vest and belt. 

"Hullo again," Harry greeted him.

Sol stopped stock still for an instant. He took off the hardhat and ran a hand through his hair ruefully. "So you are a copper."

"Only in a past life. Here." Harry tossed him the small golden key he'd found beneath the gardenias. "I take it you know what that is?"

"Do you?" Sol dropped gracefully onto the bench next to Harry.

"A Gringotts vault key."

Sol eyed his thoroughly Muggle t-shirt, jeans, and trainers. "You're a wizard."

"Are you?" Harry asked curiously.

"Squib," Sol shrugged, the casual movement gliding over many, many unspoken things.

"Why do you want to break into Gringotts?"

"None of your business," Sol answered nonchalantly. "Why are you so curious?"

"Because I want to break into Gringotts too."

Sol chortled at that. "You? Why do you want to break into Gringotts?"

"To save the world," Harry replied with utmost seriousness. He waited until Sol's laughter had mostly subsided before offering him the remaining half of the scone. "It's very good. I love cranberry."

Sol took it, shaking his head. "You're a lunatic, aren't you?"

"If you want, sure. Let's work together."

"What do you bring to this partnership, then?" Sol asked between quick bites of the pastry.

"Magic. A library. A magic library. A safe house. Financial resources...er, I think."

"You think? And also, boring," Sol harrumphed.

"Yeah? What are you looking for in a partnership, then?" Harry challenged.

"Dinner, dancing, snogging, blowjobs...not necessarily in that order," Sol smirked.

Harry chuckled, shaking his head. "I walked right into that one, didn't I?"

"You did. So?"

"Not on offer, sorry," Harry grinned wryly. "Anything else I can interest you with?"

"How about your real name?"

Harry turned to face him properly. "All right." He dismissed the glamour and held out his hand. "Harry Potter."

"Holy shit." Sol's jaw dropped. After a moment he took Harry's hand for the second time and shook it. "Sol Campion. Y'know, I don't even know why I'm reacting this way; wizards aren't exactly high on my list of favorite people, but: holy shit." He turned Harry's hand over and pressed a kiss to the palm.

Harry laughed helplessly. "You don't give up, do you?"

"When I have Harry fucking Potter sitting in front of me? Hey, can I see your scar?"

Harry lifted his bangs out of the way. "It's a curse scar. From the Killing Curse."

"How did you survive, then? Are you really some kind of über-wizard?"

Harry smiled sadly. "My mum died to protect me. Her love saved me."

"Oh." The lost expression on Sol's face made Harry want to reach out to him. A instant later it was gone, and he murmured, "I'm sorry."

"Thank you," Harry replied automatically, his eyes searching Sol's expressive face for that flash of... Understanding? Grief? Longing?

Sol stood. "I should go."

Harry looked up at him as Sol hesitated. "Wait." He dug into the mokeskin pouch for a pen and paper. "Here's my number if you change your mind about Gringotts."

Sol tucked it into his pocket. "Bye, Harry."

Harry waited a beat before calling to Sol's back, "My boring library says that key is totally useless, by the way. Every goblin carries a key to Vault 712."

Sol gave Harry the two-finger salute without looking back. "Smart-arse."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The translation of "Wachsenden Ringen" by Rainer Maria Rilke _is_ an original. Please do not repost without permission. :)


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please jump to the end notes to see specific warning tags for this chapter.

"Hey Percy," Harry said as he passed by Percy's seat at dinner. Percy opened his mouth to answer, but as usual, nothing came out. Harry exchanged easy greetings with Lupin and Tonks and a nod with Moody before sitting down next to Hermione. They smiled at each other and said something too low for Percy hear before Harry raised his voice: "Thanks for dinner, Percy."

Percy ducked his head and stared at his plate as everyone echoed Harry. It was an odd rule at Grimmauld Place that everyone took turns cooking, though they couldn't eat in the kitchen because it 'disturbed Kreacher.' This resulted in some suboptimal meals, like toasted cheese sandwiches for three days in a row for lunch and dinner, but nobody ever complained. Why Harry kept a house-elf who refused to cook was beyond Percy. It was like having an owl who didn't deliver letters. What was the point?

"Thanks for the cabbage, Kreacher," Harry added. 

That was another mystery. Every day the house-elf would serve up something barely edible, like the turnips on his first day here, or boiled whole sticks of celery, or a bowl of peas, or the cabbage today, and Harry would always thank him for it. 

He and Hermione both helped themselves. "Hmm, I think he added a little salt today," Harry mused.

Hermione nodded. "Really brings out the flavor of...cabbage," she agreed, and they grinned at each other as if they were enacting a private joke.

Resentment flashed through him. He'd actually made an effort; why were they gushing over a boiled head of cabbage instead? Were they mocking him? 

"Eat, lad," Moody said next to him, serving him a piece of the herb-roasted chicken he'd labored over for more than two hours. "This isn't bad at all."

"Not bad? This is great!" Harry enthused, and Percy looked up to see Harry pick up another drumstick and then spoon a huge helping of mashed potatoes onto his plate. "Is this one of Mrs. Weasley's recipes?"

Percy quickly cast his gaze at his plate again and nodded, a flush of pleasure running down to the tips of his fingers. His chest unclenched, and he finally managed to take a bite of his own food. The conversation moved on, and both disappointment and relief ran like a light venom through his veins.

This was what he was now, this unfiltered mess of raw emotion that he had no control over, and he hated it. He would give an eye and both legs to go back to the Percy he had been, to his orderly life and his five-year plan, which had taken him to heights even he hadn't foreseen (Junior Assistant, Second Class to the Minister for Magic at twenty-one!) But not only could he not figure out how to get back on track to his own life, he couldn't even remember what it had all been for, or why he'd wanted to become Minister for Magic in the first place.

Because being Minister hadn't stopped Scrimgeour from dying alone and betrayed at the hands of You-Know-Who, had it? And being Head Boy and Rookie Ministry Worker of the Year hadn't stopped Percy from—

No, he couldn't think about that. He mustn't think about that. 

The room was closing in again, the hooded shadows stretching long-taloned claws toward him, the voices becoming distorted and discordant. The beating of his own heart pounded in his ears like a drum: ba-DUMP, ba-DUMP, ba-DUMP, and he was suffocating, he couldn't get enough air—

"Deep breaths, lad, come on. Listen to me," said a low voice in his ear. "Like we practiced. Inhale. Exhale. Deep breaths. Inhale. Exhale. That's it."

When he could see again, and the room had resumed its normal proportions, Percy found to his surprise that no great time had passed, and no one seemed to have even noticed his momentary lapse. "I'm okay," he whispered.

"Good," Moody said, and that was all.

The meal tasted like chalk after that, but Percy knew he needed the food, so he ate. He could simply get up and go back to his room, and no one would bat an eye, or say anything upon his return, but Harry had been away all day, and Percy found he needed to keep an eye on him. Because pondering the mystery that was Harry Potter was safe, like working on communication spells but more interesting. Safe, even if Harry himself wasn't, with those green eyes that had pierced right into Percy's soul and bared its darkest corners to the light like the sickly white underbelly of an overturned blast-ended skrewt.

How had he known to say those things to Percy? It had almost sounded like—but that couldn't be true, could it? He was seventeen years old! Though somehow Percy could never remember that fact except when he was looking directly at Harry, and sometimes not even then. And it didn't seem like anyone else treated him like a seventeen-year-old, either. Just how had he and Hermione managed to get all those Portkeys out of the Ministry, anyway? If asked, Percy would've stated that not even a full team of Aurors could've done it.

After dinner, Moody herded everyone into the drawing room, where he announced the Order's plan to evacuate the entire village of Treves on the next day. Oh, that was why Tonks was here, of course, and why Lupin looked so unhappy about it. "A couple of former DMLE are meeting us there, but we're gonna need a few more wands. You with us, Potter?"

"Yes, of course," Harry answered easily, as if he didn't need to think about it all. 

"You can count me in," Lupin added.

Moody nodded in satisfaction before his good eye came to rest on Percy. "Weasley?"

Percy felt his pulse spike at being yanked into the spotlight. "I..." he stammered. Why was Moody asking him, of all people? He could feel himself flushing heavily and beginning to sweat as every eye turned to him.

"Moody," Harry said, a clear warning in his voice. He and the ex-Auror locked gazes.

"You know and I know there's gonna be a big battle at the end of it all," Moody growled, "and everyone who can pick up a wand will be fighting for their lives. Tomorrow's gonna be a skirmish at worst. So, d'you want your friends to be blooded in this fight, or that one?"

Something flickered in Harry's eyes, but he only said, "Neither, I hope." He turned to Percy, and his voice softened. "You're under no obligation of any kind to go, or to fight, Percy."

"Lad?" Moody prompted.

"I'll fight," Percy heard himself say through a fog of confusion, and a full-body shudder ran through him that he was sure was visible to everyone.

But Moody only said, "Good lad." He heard Moody ask, "Granger?" somewhere very far away, beyond the panicked clamoring in his head, and Hermione responding:

"I'll go," in a clear and decisive tone that brooked no argument. Harry, Percy noticed, didn't protest her inclusion.

"Now, here's the plan," Moody began. Percy forced himself to pay the utmost attention. "We'll be evacuating eighty-three people to Germany tomorrow between 9:00 am and 9:36 am in groups of seven staggered three minutes apart. With so many people, we can't make it any closer than that; we need to give 'em time to pick themselves up and get off the landing point. So that's twelve Portkeys going off every three minutes. There's six of us and six ex-DMLE to act as cat-herders and protection. We'll pair off at pre-designated locations around the village: Tonks and Lupin, Potter and Granger, Weasley and myself."

Percy saw Harry and Hermione exchange glances; Harry interrupted, "I'll go with Percy." He looked at Percy. "All right?"

Percy dropped his gaze and nodded, throat dry.

"Fine," Moody acquiesced, unperturbed, and Percy felt his stomach swoop, not with nausea as it so often did these days, but as if he were diving on a broomstick. Not entirely pleasant—unnerving, in fact, but also...a little exciting?

Moody picked a scroll off a side table and unfurled it in midair. It was a map of the village with houses and streets labeled in intricate detail. "Here are the six Portkey locations: bakery, synagogue, café, Schroeder residence, Rubenstein residence, Scherwin residence." He pointed at each spot on the map as he named them. 

Harry was frowning as if he were trying to remember something. He said suddenly, "Not the bakery. The only space big enough for sixteen people is in the basement, where the storage is, and we'll be trapped down there if anything happens."

Moody paused. Lupin and his wife looked between Harry and the ex-Auror as if they wanted to say something, but had no idea what. Moody asked, "Where would you suggest, then?"

"There's no other private residence big enough?" 

Moody shook his head. "It's a small place."

"Bookshop, then," Harry said after another moment of thought.

"Bookshop?"

"It has a reading area for children that should work, if some shelves are pushed aside."

Moody nodded slowly. "I'll get a message off to the other team tonight."

And that, it seemed, was that. And Percy had one more mystery to add to his collection.

The next day was heavily overcast, but with the kind of racing cloud-cover that seemed like it might soon clear without a drop of rain. They gathered in the drawing room, Harry and Hermione in Muggle-style t-shirts and jeans that left their arms bare (which, for some reason, made Percy's cheeks heat), Moody in his usual spell-imbued long coat, Tonks in Auror-style robes but a dark maroon rather than crimson, and Lupin in his worn wizard's robes. Percy immediately felt over-dressed. He'd spent an inordinately long time in front of the closet this morning, dithering over the correct dress code to follow for a non-Ministry-sanctioned evacuation operation. Or was it Ministry-sanctioned, given that the Portkeys were obviously Ministry-issued? In the end he'd decided on Ministry semi-official, and had altered one of the robes in his closet to that effect.

Moody gave them the coordinates, and they went down to the Apparition point in the subbasement. When it was their turn, Harry asked quietly, "Do you want to side-along with me?"

Percy shook his head, though he'd wanted to say "yes." Harry turned on the spot and disappeared. Percy waited for a couple of seconds before following.

He landed in a small courtyard in front of the synagogue, and immediately stepped aside to allow Hermione and Moody to come through. Harry was shaking hands with a dark-skinned woman with long hair tied back in tiny braids. She exuded the kind of no-nonsense air that always rather intimidated Percy. She looked surprised to see Harry, and perhaps a little concerned. They spoke to each other in a low tone, and then Harry went on to greet the man next to her, whom Percy vaguely remembered as an Auror Khan. 

The woman introduced herself to Percy as he approached. "Ava Harper," she said. "Former Auror. Thank you for coming today."

"Percy Weasley," Percy responded automatically. "Former...er, Junior Assistant to the Minister for Magic." He wondered for a second how Harry had introduced himself. 'Current Chosen One?'

"How are your defensive charms, Weasley? Khan's a good duelist, I'm thinking you two could work well together," Harper pondered. "I wouldn't have expected old Mad-Eye to bring along a seventeen-year-old..."

Just then he heard the pop of Apparition, and knew that Moody had arrived with Hermione. Harper frowned.

"Uh," Percy protested weakly, stuck between alarm and panic.

"Percy's with me, Auror Harper," Harry informed the Auror politely, suddenly appearing at his side. "Moody's already assigned our pairs, and Percy and I have worked together before."

If 'glued to the back of Harry's broom with a sticking charm' constituted 'working together.' 

He had pitched his voice to carry, and now Moody came up to them with his long limping stride. "They'll be fine, Harper," he growled. "Let's go take a look at that bookstore."

While they were gone, Khan produced a copy of the map and pointed out their assignments. He and Harper had the synagogue, which was located near the center of the village. It was the tallest building here, and a likely target if there was an attack. Two other teams had the café and Schroeder residence. Harry studied the map. "Tonks and Remus, you should take the bookshop. Percy and I will take Rubenstein, and Moody and Hermione can take the Scherwin residence." 

The Scherwin residence, Percy noticed, was located between the Schroeder residence and the synagogue. The bookshop was near both the synagogue and the café, while the Rubenstein residence was the furthest and set a little distance apart from the village.

"Bookstore's fine," Moody reported when he and Harper returned. He didn't argue with Harry's assignments. He handed six Portkeys to Harper and two to Lupin and Tonks. "Got yours?" he asked Harry, and Harry nodded. "All right, let's set out."

It was 8:48 AM. The first two teams were already in position, and would be ready to go once the Portkeys reached them. He and Harry would be the last team, with one group Portkeying out at 9:18 AM and the other at 9:36 AM. They'd decided on a round-robin configuration to give each team the maximum time possible to set up their second group.

Percy and Harry Disapparated in front of the low hedge surrounding the Rubenstein property. It had a large garden with several fruit trees as well as rows of tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes, and pumpkin. Trellises of string bean, cucumber, and a variety of climbing squashes formed a living green wall along one side. A woman was waiting for them at the gate, and she smiled and opened it for them as they reached her. "Thank you for coming," she said. "My name is Leanne Rubenstein."

"Percy Weasley," Percy offered, shaking her hand briefly. It felt small and dainty in his, and very soft.

"Harry Potter," Harry did likewise, and Percy saw the woman's warm tea-colored eyes widen a bit at the name. 

But: "Everyone's gathered inside," was all she said.

"Are you okay going in alone?" Harry asked him. "I want to take a quick look around."

Percy nodded, and followed Leanne down the flagstone path toward the house. "It's a beautiful garden," he complimented her, and then remembered, and immediately wanted to take the words back.

But she smiled at him and agreed, "It is. My grandparents planted it when they bought this land. When she was a little girl, my mother kept asking for a place to plant flowers, but they told her that there might be a day when she would be glad she could survive on food from her own land. Fortunately she's never had to, and she got her flowers in the end." As they arrived at the house, Percy saw that roses, hyacinths, peonies, and other blossoms he could not name formed a wide arc of riotous color and sweetness around the house.

The house was smaller than he had assumed from the size of the land, and the sitting room was filled to bursting with ten adults, three children, and an old woman in a wheelchair. Leanne introduced the old woman as her _bubbe_ , then pointed out her mother, a comfortably plumb witch in stylish turquoise robes who was urging latkes and kibbeh on everyone. Her brother David was there with his wife Siobhan and their young son William. They had been joined by two other families, the Aronoffs and the Erlands. 

"Come, eat!" Leanne's mother, Sarah, said to him. "We have so much food! Please take it away when you leave, too. We certainly can't finish all of this!" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Leanne pick up what appeared to be the Daily Prophet from the coffee table and stuff it unobtrusively onto an overflowing shelf. He took a rugelach out of politeness. Sarah looked so happy that he forced himself to nibble on it though his stomach was in knots. "You look very young to be risking your life for strangers," she said.

"Oh, I...I was in the Dueling Club at Hogwarts," Percy stammered, wondering if she had seen through his inexperience somehow in the two minutes he'd been standing next to her. 

"That's very impressive!" she responded cheerfully. "I got a Troll on my Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L., can you imagine? Fortunately all I wanted was to run a bakery, and you don't need to know how to expel Boggarts for that!" Her face turned wistful at the mention of the bakery, and Percy wondered if it was indeed hers that they had considered as another possible Portkey location. "Have...a lot of Muggle-borns left already?"

Percy shook his head. "Not yet. You're the largest group we've had so far."

"Oh." Sarah sighed. "Our parents were the ones who insisted we go. I don't know if you know anything about our history, but this village was founded by German Jewish refugees rescued by Ida Cook, whom we honor as one Righteous Among the Nations. That was during the 30s. Now they're afraid, because they think the same thing will happen again with You-Know-Who in power."

"But you're...going back to Germany? Won't that be painful for them?" Percy choked out with difficulty.

"My mother was one of the people who voted for it," Sarah turned a fond smile on the elderly woman in the wheelchair, who was listening intently to her great-grandson chatter animatedly about the broomstick his parents had gotten him for his birthday. "I think maybe she wanted to see her birth-land again one more time."

Percy excused himself to go outside for a minute or two. He rubbed at his burning eyes; he wanted to shout and curse at the sky. How could this have happened? How could they have let it happen? He had never felt so much shame for his country and his people.

"Percy." Harry came up the porch steps. His hand gripped Percy's shoulder for a moment. There was understanding in those brilliant green eyes, and Percy wondered if he'd spoken the words out loud. "All right?" Percy nodded: it was easy to feel all right with Harry standing there next to him. "Let's start getting everyone organized. Here." He handed Percy the two Portkeys, labeled "Lightning Storm" and "Whirlwind," both already dated and signed.

Percy conjured a _tempus_ -clock. It was 9:07 AM.

There appeared to be an argument in progress within the house. "But I don't want to go!" a male voice exclaimed, followed by a murmur of voices. 

Opening the door, Percy saw the Erland family in the corner near the kitchen standing in a semi-circle around a tall, stout young man of about eighteen. His face was flushed beet-red. "You can't make me go!" he shouted.

"Enough of this!" a large dark-haired man built like a bear growled. "This is for your own good, Trevor, and you'll thank me for it one day."

"That's what you always say, when you just want to do things for your own convenience, and make me into somebody I'm not! I'm sick of it!"

There was a little hush as Harry entered. Trevor's chest heaved from his outburst. His eyes widened as he recognized Harry. Harry nodded at Percy and melted back to stand in an unobtrusive corner.

Percy stepped forward and announced in his best Ministry-official voice, "Will the first group please bring your belongings together and gather 'round? We need you to form a circle so everyone can reach the Portkey." _Just like a Ministry function_ , Percy thought bracingly to himself.

The three families had already decided on the two groups between themselves. The young Aronoff family of three would be in the first group along with Sarah, David, Siobhan, and William. The Erland family of five would follow with Leanne and her grandmother.

There was a bit of polite jostling as the first group formed a circle in the center of the sitting room. "Thank you," Percy said. "For those unfamiliar with Portkey travel, be sure to hold onto your Portkey until you land on the other side. Failure to do so can result in displacement to Antarctica or other undesired destinations. Once you arrive, gather your belongings and move away quickly to allow the next group room to land. Someone from the German Ministry of Magic will be there to grant you official asylum and get you settled in. Any questions?"

There were no questions. Sarah's eyes, when he handed her the "Lightning Storm" parchment, were tear-bright, but she only said, "Thank you."

Everyone took hold of a parchment-edge. There was a silence. Percy held his breath. Then his _tempus_ -clock moved to 9:18, and the seven people in the circle whirled away.

The people still remaining in the room let out a collective breath of relief. Leanne sat down by her _bubbe_ and took her thin age-spotted hand. The murmur of conversation resumed.

Suddenly a young voice called out, "Where's Trevor? Dad, I think Trevor's gone."

The tension in the room was suddenly palpable. The bearish man immediately opened the door and ran outside.

"Trevor!" he shouted.

"I've made up my mind and I'm not going, Dad!" they heard Trevor's yell from the garden. And then softer, pleading: "The Dark Lord only cares about Mudbloods. We'll be safe if we stay."

"Percy," Harry said calmly, drawing Percy's attention inexorably to him as Trevor's father growled furiously:

"Get back in here right this second! You have no idea what you're talking about!"

"Dad, are you blind? That's _Harry Potter_ in there! He's a criminal! There's a reward for his capture!"

Percy looked at him. With that abstracted expression on his face, Harry reminded him of Moody when he studied a battle-map or the reports he received from various Order members. "Can you cast _Protego totalum_?"

Percy nodded. He had gotten an EE on his Defense Against the Dark Arts N.E.W.T., after all.

"Good. Get ready to cast it on my signal, okay?"

Percy let out an unsteady breath and nodded again. He slid his wand out of his robes as his heart rate began increasing rapidly.

"Trevor, NO!" they heard from the garden. 

" _Expecto patronum,_ " Harry said softly, and Percy heard gasps as Harry's Patronus materialized in front of them. His might have been one of them; he had never seen Harry's Patronus before, though he'd heard rumors that Harry had learned the spell as early as his Third Year. He would have scoffed at the idea even a short month ago; now he wasn't so sure. The ethereal stag bowed its head to Harry, huge and beautiful, filling the room with ghostly light and a sweet air of serenity. Harry said only, "Tell the others we have possible incoming." And then it bounded out the door and was gone.

Harry pulled something that looked like a gray rectangular block dotted with silver buttons out of his pocket. "Dial Hermione," he said to it, and a moment later Hermione's voice came out of the block as clearly as if she were in the room with them. 

"Harry?" she said. "We got your message. What's happening?"

"Someone from our group just Apparated away. He might be contacting the Death Eaters."

Moody's voice came on, a little muffled. "Tell us as soon as you know for sure."

"Right," Harry concurred. "Hermione, stay on the line." He tucked the odd communication device back into this pocket.

Trevor's father appeared in the doorway, ashen-faced, diminished somehow, as if someone had cast _reducio_ on him in the brief time he'd been outside. "He's gone," he said heavily to his younger son and the gray-haired couple waiting for him. His remaining family members folded him into a small pocket of comfort.

A silvery light coalesced in midair into the shape of a cheetah. It looked at Harry and said in Ava Harper's voice, "Sit tight. We'll start coming to you."

The seconds trickled by. Percy had never felt the passage of time so acutely. Everyone waited, silent. Harry suddenly commanded, "Cast the shield, Percy. Now."

" _Protego totalum_!" he cried. His heart stopped for a split-second when nothing happened. Then his shield expanded over the room, and his heart restarted, beating in double-time to make up for the lapse.

"Hermione, they're here," Harry said to the air, and his back pocket relayed his words to Moody.

The group inside the house looked at each other with frightened eyes. They had ten more minutes to go.

Outside, a pumpkin soared into the air and burst apart into chunks of orange flesh. Harry looked out the window and shot something through the glass. There was a cry and a distant thud.

"How are you doing, Percy?" Harry asked as if they were making pumpkin biscuits instead of holding off a siege.

"I'm fine," Percy responded, feeling Harry's calm like an almost tangible force around him.

"We'll be okay," Harry assured him.

"Harry!" Hermione's voice called, panicked. "Three of our group just ran out! Someone's set fire to the synagogue roof! They're not going to make the Portkey!"

"I'll go get them," Harry replied. "I have a spare for Spain. Get your group safely out and help Harper!"

"Harry Potter!" a thready but clear accented voice interrupted Harry before he could Apparate away. "Bring them here. We will make room." Harry met the steady eyes of Leanne's grandmother. He nodded and disappeared with a pop.

Leanne's grandmother said something to her, and she brought a cushion from the sofa and set it down on the floor, in the middle of the circle the previous group had formed. She helped her _bubbe_ painfully down from her wheelchair and onto it, then sat down behind her on the floor to cradle and support her from behind. Trevor's father knelt down in front of the old woman and murmured something with downcast eyes. She laid a gnarled hand against his bowed head. Percy looked away.

He could feel the strain of the shield now, the quivering beneath repeated bombardments. Yet the more he concentrated on it, the more he could feel it slipping away into that black void always hovering these days at the edge of his mind. His breathing quickened. He could hear Moody's voice inside his head: inhale, exhale. But the fear was too strong. He was back at the Burrow, watching Death Eaters encircle them from every direction, knowing that they were there because he'd called for them. He was watching the young Auror standing next to him, watching his own wand lift, knowing what was about to happen, unable to stop himself because he wanted it to happen—

He could feel his shield beginning to fail. He was going to fail, and then he would be responsible for all these people's deaths, too. 

The spell shattered.

Percy slumped against the wall, head ringing with the backlash. He braced himself, but nothing hit the house. "Here, lad, sit down a minute, you're pale as a ghost," said a kind voice worn smooth with age. He opened his eyes to see Trevor's grandfather peering at him with concern. He allowed himself to be led into a chair. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Nothing to be sorry about, young man," Trevor's grandmother said briskly with her wand held straight up in the air. "This old witch may not have your stamina, but I can at least spell you for a bit. Eat something, it'll help. Sarah's rugelaches are to die for." She winked, and Percy found himself letting out a watery chuckle. 

He followed her advice. He hadn't really tasted the first rugelach, but somehow the melted chocolate in his second felt like liquid magic on his tongue. It warmed him right down to his stomach.

"One more," she prompted, "or I'll finish the rest all by myself."

Percy smiled and obeyed. Then they looked at each other. She nodded, and he recast his shield as she ended hers. 

"Thank you," he said gratefully. She patted his shoulder and went to rejoin her family.

He could hear shouting outside, the sounds of fighting. The early teams must have circled back to help. He let out a sigh of relief. 

Harry Apparated back with a man in his thirties. There was blood on his face, and Harry's t-shirt sported a smoking hole on the back of his right shoulder. "We're fine," Harry said at his look. "Back in a mo."

9:31. It was time to set up the circle. Trevor's grandparents directed everyone into position around the Rubensteins, leaving space for two more. Percy handed the "Whirlwind" parchment into the circle. Leanne and her grandmother took hold of the two bottom corners from below, while everyone else grabbed an edge wherever they could. A minute remaining. Harry reappeared with two young men in their twenties, their chestnut hair, blue eyes, and long narrow faces identifying them as brothers of the first man. They murmured sheepish greetings and merged with the circle. Everyone held their breath as they counted down the seconds. At last the clock hit 9:36, and they spun away.

Harry and Percy looked at each other. Then Harry smiled and clasped Percy on the shoulder. "Well done, Percy." Percy smiled back. He wanted to tell Harry how incredible he was, but the words refused to form. Maybe someday.

Harry's eyes alighted on the spread of food. "So what's the protocol for disposing of food after an evacuation?" he wondered.

"Well, Sarah did ask us to take it," Percy coughed. "Plus, it's your turn to cook."

Harry's gleeful laugh trickled through him like warm chocolate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery
> 



	17. Chapter 17

After a delicious dinner that night Harry joined Ron and Hermione in the drawing room. Ron had returned from the Burrow just that afternoon, bringing news of his family and the goings-on at the Ministry.

"Percy's officially dead, Dad's miserable, and Mum's over the moon," Ron reported cheerfully. "He lost his entire collection of Muggle doodads, you know, during the battle, even those little rubber ducks he could never figure out. Now Mum's angling for a greenhouse to replace the garage, since we don't have a car anymore. Says she wants to try her hand at raising mandrake and such, once we all move out of the house."

"Well, that doesn't sound too bad," Hermione commented bracingly. "Mr. Weasley can always replace his Muggle gadgets. Harry and I can help, too. As soon as it's safe to do so."

"It's not just that, see; it's the job, too." For some reason Ron sounded positively elated at his father's misery. "He was made Head Bean Counter in the Department of Magical Finance Matters."

"So...he's an accountant now?" Hermione asked, puzzled. "Don't you need qualifications for that?"

"What's an accountant?"

"Someone who figures out how much money you have, where it's supposed to be spent, and how much you owe other people," Hermione clarified.

"Yeah, bean counter. Isn't that what I said? Nah, he's in charge of 'em," Ron explained. "All he has to do is sit around all day and sign things. Old Willaby Rowle was furious at being kicked out. He only got the job fourteen years ago, you know, after Octavian Yaxley drowned on a Muggle ferry (never ride on a Muggle boat, my Aunt Muriel says, and she would know, since my uncle Tristan went down with the Titanic). Most Head Bean Counters hold the job for decades. One even made it two centuries."

Hermione gave Harry a questioning look, and he shrugged. To be honest, he'd never paid much attention to the financial side of the Ministry. Filling out the yearly budgetary forms had bored him silly, and he'd always gotten what he asked for, anyway. "Why are you so happy, then?" Hermione asked Ron. "It doesn't sound like a very stimulating job."

"But Rowle's rich as Croesus, isn't he? And so is every single person who's ever held that position."

Harry and Hermione looked at each other with equally stumped expressions. 

Before they could probe further and perhaps puncture his entirely speculative enthusiasm, Ron hastily extracted the _Daily Prophet_ out of his pocket and opened it to the front page with malicious glee. "Hey Harry, look, you made the front page!"

The headline blared, "Is Harry Potter the Most Dangerous Dark Wizard of Our Times?"

"What now?" Hermione growled in the back of her throat and snatched it out of his hands. Her eyes flitted rapidly down the page. "I can't believe they get away with printing this rubbish! It's criminal!"

"Yeah, I especially liked the part about Harry being wanted for questioning for the death of Albus Dumbledore and the disappearance of Rufus Scrimgeour. I'm tempted to turn him in for the reward of 10,000 galleons, I'll have you know."

Hermione rolled the newspaper and whacked him over the head with it. "That's the price you put on our friendship? 10,000 galleons?"

"Ow, Hermione! Well, what else am I supposed to do until my dad strikes it rich, huh?" _Whack_ Ow!"

Harry laughed. Once everyone had calmed down a bit, he asked, "How's Ginny?"

Ron shrugged. "Sulking. That's all she does nowadays, sulk about the house. Mum and Dad wouldn't let her come back, or even talk about the Order. Well, actually, none of us are supposed to talk about the Order, in case we're being watched. Plus she'll have to go back to Hogwarts in September. Attendance is mandatory now, you know."

Harry glanced at Hermione. She looked like she was holding herself back from asking a question, so he asked it for her: "What about you? Are you going back?"

Ron squirmed in his chair. "Well, I thought I probably should, so I don't get my dad in trouble. Plus Lavender's going back, and I should be there to protect her..." Hermione looked away, suddenly quiet, and Ron added, "Oh, you probably haven't heard. Guess who rumor says is going to be made Headmaster of Hogwarts?"

Harry carefully leaned back in his chair so his face was in shadow.

"Surely Professor McGonagall—"

"Snape, that's who. Plus Death Eater siblings called Alecto and Amycus Carrow to take over Muggle Studies and Defense Against the Dark Arts. It's going to be a nice little nest of vipers."

"Snape!" Hermione snarled. "Dumbledore's murderer sitting in his chair when he's not fit to _scourgify_ his boots! Oh, the nerve! I could scream!"

There was a silence as both of his friends waited for him to say something. Harry coughed. "I was thinking about going up to Hogwarts, actually. Scope it out, take a look around."

"Harry," said Hermione sternly. "You're not going to try to take Snape one-on-one? "

"No," Harry's voice sounded odd to his own ears. Her cleared his throat and tried again. "No, I doubt I'll find him alone, anyway."

"How're you getting up there, do you think?" Ron asked.

"Apparate to Hogsmeade and fly, probably."

"Broomstick?" Hermione wondered doubtfully. "That's pretty conspicuous, isn't it? And concealment spells don't work very well on a broom."

"Oh, I guess I didn't tell you," Harry smiled. "I can fly in my Animagus form."

"You have an Animagus form?" Ron leaned forward eagerly. "What is it?"

"Here, I can show you," Harry concentrated. A moment later he was standing much lower in the seat, and his friends had toppled over with laughter. Harry narrowed his eyes at them, disgruntled. He'd never gotten that reaction to his Animagus form before.

"Sorry, Harry, it's just—" Hermione had a hand pressed against her stomach. "Here..." She fumbled for her wand and created a small mirror in mid-air. 

Harry transformed back and glared at them both. "It's not that funny."

"It kinda is," Ron gasped between fits. "You're sitting there all dignified, and your—your head is all fluffy! I wish I could've taken a picture."

Harry huffed. "All right you two, have your fun. I'm going to bed."

  
(Hermione took a picture.)

Harry woke early the next day with excitement already fluttering in his chest. He decided not to look too closely at the reason (wasn't Hogwarts reason enough?) and luxuriated in a long, hard stretch. Being seventeen again did have its advantages, like the fact that his broom-top acrobatics yesterday hadn't resulted in a wrenched back or pulled muscles.

It was near enough to dawn that no one was down for breakfast yet when Harry shuffled into the kitchen. He decided to make himself scrambled eggs and toast and set up a skillet on the range, mind pleasantly focused on his task. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Kreacher appeared suddenly at his side, wailing, "Master, no!"

Harry's flailing arm caught the handle of the skillet and flipped it neatly round-end first onto his big toe; while he was hopping around trying not to let out a shriek that would wake the entire house, he forgot to stop Kreacher, who picked up the skillet and brained himself with it in self-punishment. They both sat down rather abruptly on the kitchen floor. At least he hadn't managed to light the range yet.

After a bit the ridiculousness of the situation overcame him, and he cupped his hands over his mouth and laughed helplessly as Kreacher watched him with wide eyes. "It's okay, Kreacher," he soothed the elf once he regained control of himself. "Are you okay? What did you need?"

"Kreacher is a bad elf," Kreacher whispered mournfully. "Kreacher is not cooking for Master so Master is hurting himself and cooking for himself and his friends."

"I don't mind cooking for myself or my friends, and I don't usually hurt myself...(much)," Harry reassured him. "Remember when I said this is your house? You have a right to live here without having to serve anybody."

"But Kreacher wants to serve Master," Kreacher muttered miserably. "It hurts Kreacher not to serve Master."

Harry sighed and patted Kreacher's shoulder. "How should we make this better, then?" One day elves would understand that the choice to serve or not serve lay with them. If he offered Kreacher freedom now, it would only wound him further. "What if you made a dish you think everyone would enjoy for us to share every night? I would really like that. I like it when my friends are happy."

Kreacher thought for a moment and nodded dubiously. 

"Yeah? Great. Hey, you wanna help me with the scrambled eggs? Apparently I am incapable of using cookware this morning."

Kreacher jumped eagerly to his feet. "Kreacher will make the best eggs for Master!" he vowed.

Harry huffed a laugh and wondered what Hermione would say to this after his 'beautiful speech.'

The Order safe house in Hogsmeade lay on the extreme fringes of the village. Its sagging roof, crooked windows, and ivy-covered walls made it look for all the world like one of those poor neglected dwellings being slowly reclaimed by nature during a long absence by its owner. —Which, aside from the layers of carefully-wrought wards, was not too far from the truth. 

Harry Apparated into the sunlight-flooded sitting room with broomstick in hand, ready to make an escape any way he could in case Death Eaters had breached the wards. He listened for a few minutes, but there was no sound save his own adrenaline-charged heart beat. The wards flowed strong and unbroken around him. He fed his Firebolt back into his mokeskin pouch and went to the window to look outside. 

The narrow residential cobblestoned street was empty and still. Far off in the distance, where it met the more traveled High Street, he could see a few early risers setting off to jobs and errands. The other end faded into the path that wended through the foothills toward the caves.

Tall weeds, dry and rattling in the summer heat, filled the backyard. He transformed and waddled into it until he was clear of the eaves. Then he leapt up and flapped his stubby wings frantically. He sank like a drunken augurey.

_Tell me you have a plan B. Because this? This is embarrassing._

_I would've thought you'd be inured to embarrassment by now._

He held up his right wing and concentrated, Transfiguring the feathers into something closer to what would one day be their final form. He did the same to his left.

This time when he sprang upwards, he felt his wings properly cup the air and hold his weight. Except that, he realized as he headed straight for the hedge and back-winged too late, his maneuvering was all out of whack.

_Ow._

_I'm not even gonna say anything._

He picked himself out of vines of morning glory and snags of laurel. A few more minutes of Transfiguration gave him a properly elongated and fan-shaped tail. He shook himself all over, hopped around on one foot and the other with wings outstretched, testing balance and proportions. Then he lifted his head and shot like a streak of spell-light towards the sun. 

The blue expanse of the sky blazed before him, unfurled like his own heart in half-forgotten joy and effervescent delight. The wind streamed past him in a chorus of playful welcome, and he screamed the falcon's fierce desire in response, challenging it to lift him ever higher. The village dwindled beneath him, miniature houses fading back into heat-wearied earth and sun-bleached monochrome until it became one more patch in a vast undulating quilt.

In the distance, the Black Lake beckoned in glittering trails of silver, all of them pointed homeward. He hurtled towards the castle beyond, losing himself in the scorching flight, racing the wind now, leaving behind name, memories, and time itself, giving everything to his love of speed. Past the ruffled waters, Hogwarts rose below him both impenetrable and intensely familiar, like something he'd shaped into reality out of a recurring dream. He circled above the soaring towers once, twice, and then ebbed back into his own shape at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, taking in huge gulps of air as his lungs relearned how to breathe oxygen instead of fire.

The forest behind him came back to life with bird call, the skittering and rustling of tiny hidden creatures, the padded footfalls and flashes of movement of their predators. In front of him, the castle was silent but not empty. Owls lazed and napped in the Owlery, house-elves busily charted the course of their yearly grand cleaning, ghosts drifted through the empty corridors of their half-lives suspended in their insoluble resentments and fears.

Somewhere deep within its bowels, one man was weaving his magic with painstaking care into the tapestry of the castle's wards. Harry watched, and everything else grew distant in his sight. The Professors of Hogwarts had renewed those protections at Midsummer, as was tradition, before departing for their well-deserved vacations. They glowed a ghostly blue to his mind's eye, a smooth shell of power built upon the ancient latticeworks left behind by the Founders. Harry could still remember the feel of them from that summer he'd helped with the reconstruction of the castle after the war, blasted and jagged as glass from the impacts they had borne, yet still alive with the essence of all those who all given of themselves to Hogwarts' defense. Harry hadn't dared touch them then, and even now, with decades of experience working with wards under his belt, he would not have trusted himself to do what Snape was doing.

As with Grimmauld Place, generations of Wizardkind had chosen to erect new wards over Hogwarts when older ones had faded or become too complex to maintain, deeming the waste of energy a worthwhile trade-off. Now Snape was trying to revive those echoes of power forgotten and abandoned by a thousand intervening years of history. 

Harry held his breath as Snape stitched one vast, intricate, diaphanous veil into being, then another, weaving them together into a whole that was stronger than either layer alone. Any instability between them would shatter both like the shields of the nameless wizard he had dueled at the Ministry, and perhaps damage the main wards as well. But they held, to be joined by another, and another. Harry bit his lip in wonder. How was Snape doing this? He doubted even Dumbledore could have managed this display of power, balance, and artistry over an area the size of Hogwarts, even with the help of the Elder Wand.

And then he realized: Snape was using Blood Magic. He was tying himself to the castle, heart's blood to heart's home, his life to Hogwarts. If the wards fell... Harry couldn't even imagine what the backlash would be like. 

Harry's eyes blurred with tears. Did he know? Did he suspect what horrors the castle might one day face? The feeling of Snape's blood rushing in a heated torrent over his hand, slipping through his fingers, trailing down his arm, soaking into his shirt, had stayed with Harry until his death and beyond, vivid as nightmare. _Look at me._

"I'm here," he whispered. "This time, I swear you won't be fighting alone."


	18. Chapter 18

Hermione found Harry towards evening on the second floor by chance, and only because she was looking for a cool, dark place to store the potions she'd brought in her beaded bag. They'd been taking up room on her dresser since she and Harry had retrieved the Portkeys from the Ministry, and had reminded her that it would be a good idea for the house to have its own store of Healing potions.

Instead of the bedroom or closet she'd expected when she pushed the door open, she saw Harry sitting on the floor against one wall with his wand dangling from his hand in an empty high-ceilinged room a third the size of the Great Hall at Hogwarts. He lifted his head and gave her a tired smile when he heard the door open, and she took that as invitation to join him.

She sat down on the floor next to him. "Did you create this room?"

"Yeah. I thought about what Moody said and figured we should probably have a place to practice and train, given everything that's going on."

"It's a great idea. We could use a Potions lab and storage place, too."

He huffed a laugh. "All right. Anything else?"

"A warded workroom for spell-testing?"

"You don't want to use the workroom in the subbasement?"

Hermione shuddered. "I'd rather not."

Harry simply nodded.

"It's not too much, is it?"

He shrugged. "I don't mind."

She hadn't seen him all day, and he seemed to be in one of his contemplative, innerly-focused moods. The Harry she had known had seldomly preferred being alone to being with his friends, perhaps in some way trying to make up for the years he'd spent starved for human affection. The Harry in front of her seemed as patiently comfortable with one as with the other, and she wondered suddenly if it was less an automatic achievement of maturity and age than of long practice. That was a question she couldn't ask. Instead, she found herself uttering another question she'd feared:

"Do you mind that I stayed instead of going to Australia with my parents?"

He opened his mouth and closed it again, and finally said, "Hermione, I am incredibly, selfishly glad that you stayed."

"But?" Because it was obvious that there was one.

"No but," he responded firmly. "It was a choice you absolutely had the right—and the obligation—to make for yourself." And then his lips quirked up and he added, "All right, there is a but. Our world may need me for this fight, but it's you they'll need once it's over. Your brilliance. Your logic. Your compassion and sense of fairness. I don't want to risk you for a blip in time that will ultimately be inconsequential."

"Unless he wins." Her mind was firing in a hundred different directions. Harry kept hinting about something in her future, something enormous as a mountain crashing down on her, and it was driving her a little mental.

"Unless he wins." Harry looked at her. "Too much?"

"I just—let's just get through this first, okay? I don't think I can deal with expectations right now. I'm not even sure what I'll do after Hogwarts, or whether I'd want to go back for my Seventh Year. Everything's changing so fast right now."

"No expectations," Harry agreed solemnly, as though he knew that soon her brain would skip from communication spells to that Bill of Rights she'd been drafting for house-elves to a list of the furnishings and equipment they would need for the new Potions lab once Harry finished it. As though he would give her all the time she needed to come into her future on her own. Because he was the one with a prophecy and a destiny and she was free, wasn't she, to make her own choices?

"Was Snape at Hogwarts?" Hermione asked. That seemed to catch Harry off guard, which seemed strange; wasn't that why he'd gone up?

"Yeah," he answered after a moment. "It's impossible to get through the wards right now, though. I won't be able to get in until September, when Hogwarts opens to students again." She was about to question him further when he asked, as if he had read her mind earlier, "Are you okay with not being able to go back Hogwarts now that Ron's decided to go?"

"Well, it's his decision, isn't it?" she responded more acerbically than she'd meant to. "Not that I...care," she mumbled, and then slapped his chest at the clear, steady look he was giving her. "Oh, shut up." He opened his arm in invitation, and she leaned her head against his shoulder. "Tell me this gets easier as you get older."

"Can't, sorry."

"Ugh. I want to stop waiting for him, I do. I feel ridiculous. But we've been through so much together, and I'm afraid nobody else will ever get me the way he does."

"Maybe not in the same way, but different doesn't have to be bad."

"That sounds like a line from one of those horrid magazines for teenage girls," Hermione groused. "Even if it's true."

"No dating advice from me, got it," Harry chuckled. 

"How did your excursion to the bank go?" Hermione asked curiously. She and Ron had been laughing so much at poor Harry's Animagus form that she'd forgotten to ask.

"Oddly." And his face did indeed have an odd expression on it. "Could be something, could be nothing. You wouldn't happen to have any ideas about using the goblins' lounge key to get into a high-security vault, would you?"

"The goblins' lounge key?"

"Vault 712. They use it as a recreational area."

Hermione shook her head, baffled. "How did you get in the last time?"

"You impersonated Bellatrix Lestrange and I _Imperius_ ed a goblin."

"Oh. That sounds dangerous. Did it go smoothly?"

"Not at all," Harry smirked. "We stole a dragon and left half the building in ruins."

"I can see why you might not want to go that route again," Hermione responded dryly.

"Yeah, and there's the fact that Lord Thingy killed a bunch of goblins when he learned his Horcrux was missing."

"Definitely not, then," Hermione said firmly.

"How are the communication spells going?" Harry asked in turn.

"Slowly," Hermione sighed. "Here, take a look." She threw up the matrix of runes that represented the two-way mirror spell, her Protean Charm, and groups of symbols evoking security, privacy, and identification. "We've got everything deconstructed, but we're having trouble fitting everything we need back together again. That's why I thought having a workroom would help, so we can test the interlocks bit by bit. And Percy's been talking about going into the charms you placed on my mobile."

"Huh, I mean, maybe. I thought about giving everyone in the Order one, but I kinda doubt wizards would be very effective at Muggle technology. I can show you the charms, though, so you don't have to mess about with the ones on the mobile."

Hermione nodded and allowed the runes to fade. "Well, at least that's one more way you have of contacting Muggle-borns." Harry suddenly stiffened, and Hermione looked at him in confusion. "What?"

Harry slapped himself on the forehead. "I am an idiot," he muttered. "I'm been trying to figure out a way to get in touch with our Muggle-born classmates. Of course all of them should have telephones in the house. I can ask _them_ to call _us_."

"Let me do that," Hermione volunteered, following his train of thought. "In fact, I'll ask Fred and George to broadcast my number on Potterwatch. We need more ways to reach the people who need us than word-of-mouth."

"Yeah. And I'll talk to Moody and see if we can find a way to hijack the Muggle-born Registration Commission."

"Is that what I think it is?"

Harry sighed. "Probably worse. They're going to start accusing Muggle-borns of 'stealing' magic as an excuse for hunting them down."

"This is why we need an informed public and a source of news that actually fact-checks!" Hermione burst out. "If nobody knows how to separate truth from fiction, then we'll just land in this mess again in fifty years!"

Harry looked like he was trying hard to keep a straight face. "I thought you said you didn't want to deal with expectations right now?"

"That doesn't mean I'm not going to point out things that are wrong! And make lists about them!"

Harry grinned. "Don't ever stop, Hermione."

Hermione decided to sent the first of her messages out that night, late, so that she was fairly certain her Patronus would find the recipient alone. Her mobile rang a few minutes later.

"Hello?"

"Hermione? Is that you?" asked a tentative voice on the other end.

"Yes! Thanks for calling me, Dean," Hermione responded.

"I should be the one thanking you," Dean Thomas said. "Look, can we meet? Things are kinda complicated for me right now, and I can't really talk. But I have an early shift at my work tomorrow." He gave her the address of a café at Canary Wharf, and she promised to meet him there before ending the call.

She walked into the café the next morning to find a lone business man sipping a cappuccino behind the day's _Guardian_. She skimmed the front page, unable to help herself, and breathed a tiny sigh of relief to find only mundane disaster behind the headlines: political spats and MEPs in deadlock, a shortage of funds and staff for the NHS, the Duke of York caught in some kind of scandal. She and Dean smiled at each other, and she took a seat near the counter as Dean took the order of the woman who had followed her in. 

Dean handed the woman a tall paper cup, and she left the café. He came around the counter and slid a mug across the table to Hermione before sitting down across from her. She breathed in the rich scents of coffee and chocolate and smiled. "Thank you!"

He smiled back. "You're welcome. How have you been, Hermione?"

She thought about Dumbledore's funeral, sending her parents away, everything that had happened since then. "I'm fine." She sipped, and the warm, sweet, creamy mocha on her tongue made those words, for a moment, very close to being true. Then she remembered that she didn't have to be the strong one, the bulwark, the always-coolly-rational one anymore. Harry had taken that burden from her, and she was free to be honest. "Well, not really. Things have been crazy, haven't they?"

"Yeah." Dean was silent for a moment as she took another sip. "I heard Scrimgeour's emergency broadcast. Is it true? It's not a hoax?"

Hermione nodded. "The Ministry effectively serves You-Know-Who now. We've been evacuating people out of the country, the ones in danger because they've spoken out against Pure-blood supremacy. They'll come after Muggle-borns next."

"And people who can't prove they're not Muggle-born," Dean guessed.

"Yes. I know it's a lot to take in, to think about. I know none of this is easy..."

"Hermione, I really appreciate you contacting me, but I can't leave. My mum has cancer. She's been getting chemotherapy. That's why I couldn't talk last night. Your Patronus found me at the hospital. Don't worry—" he added at her expression, "nobody else saw."

"Oh." The breath punched out of her. For a moment five different voices clamored to be heard inside her head. Voice One offered the textbook response—proper emotion: sympathy; proper behavior: comfort (tr. v.: to soothe in time of affliction or distress). Voice Two agreed with Voice One, because women were supposed to know how to properly console others in all circumstances. Voice Three told Voice Two to go stuff itself, for she resented society's assumptions about the emotional labor women were expect to perform. Voice Four argued that Dean was a friend, so Voice One was in the right. Voice Five breathed a sigh of relief that though her own mother, with her warm, radiant smile showing off her perfect white teeth, her shining hair smelling faintly of honeysuckle from her favorite shampoo, was oceans away right now, she was healthy and safe. "I'm so sorry."

"It's all right. The doctors say she's responding well to treatment. But I just need to be here for her, you know?"

Hermione nodded helplessly. She wished she were Ron, with his talent for finding a touch of light in any gloom. She wished she were Harry, who always seemed to be able to find some way to help. But she was only Hermione, with her logic and her too-busy brain and her lists, all of which felt entirely useless in this situation.

They spent a little more time catching up on their mutual friends. Dean asked after Ginny, and Hermione was glad to be able to reassure him that she was well. Though he'd never seemed to resent Ginny's long-standing crush on Harry, or even that she'd immediately started dating Harry when she'd broken up with him, it was obvious to Hermione that he still cared a great deal for her.

Dean gave her his phone number before she left, and they agreed to keep in touch. 

She heard Harry's whispered "Hermione" as she walked out the door.

"Did you hear all that?" she asked his invisible form softly as they walked toward the long empty passage they had Apparated into earlier. 

"Yeah," he said. "Let's talk back at the house."

By the time they arrived in the subbasement at Grimmauld Place, Hermione had the germ of an idea. Nobody was going to like it much, but...

"Could he stay here? Dean?" she asked as Kreacher opened the cell gate for them.

Harry's head appeared from the hood of the Invisibility Cloak. He didn't look surprised at the question; very little seemed to surprise him these days. "Maybe. Let's call a meeting and see if we can hash out the details."

"So now you want to open a hotel, eh, lad?" Was Moody's comment to Harry when she'd finished explaining. 

Harry shrugged. "As long as this place is safe for us, it'll be safe for non-Order members, too."

"Yes, but will we be safe from them?" Moody growled.

"Is that your only objection?" Harry asked mildly.

"You're the one footing the bills," Moody pointed out practically.

"Well, technically it's Sirius' vault footing the bills, but good. Let's focus on security," Harry looked around the drawing room. "Anyone have any ideas?"

She and Harry were seated on one sofa, Percy the other. Remus had picked one of the flower-patterned armchairs, while Moody had taken the piano bench. 

"If none of the Secret Keepers tell them the location of the house, then they won't be able to betray our location to other people, even if they live here," Hermione said.

"But they'll know everything else: our plans, our members, the people we're trying to rescue. And don't tell me we'll be able to keep all of that secret in the same house."

"Harry could create some rooms so the two groups are segregated..."

"There would still be no guarantee," Remus put in quietly.

"It'd be a logistical nightmare," Harry agreed reluctantly.

"Obliviation?" Percy suggested after a silence, looking at Harry.

It was Moody who answered: "We might not catch 'em before they slip out."

"I can think of one way..." Remus offered unexpectedly, and every head turned toward him. "The Unbreakable Vow."

"Are you volunteering to be witness, then?" Moody asked after a silence. Remus looked down.

There hadn't been much about the Unbreakable Vow in the Hogwarts library, perhaps to discourage students from doing it as a prank, but Hermione knew that the witness, the one casting the spell, sacrificed a bit of their magic to keep the Vow intact for however long it was active. Some witnesses had even been forced to remain behind as ghosts until their Vows were fulfilled. But that would be a small price to pay, wouldn't it, to help save lives? "I—" she began, when someone else overrode her:

"I'm willing to stand as witness," Percy said.

Moody and Percy's eyes met for a few seconds. Moody nodded. "Fine. Draft the wording. I'll want to see it before you start using it."

"Thank you, Percy," Hermione said as she stood, and Percy nodded at her.

She decided she'd do some research about the Vow before attempting to write one. Just before she walked out of the room, she heard Harry say quietly, "Percy, wait. You should know that the Headquarter of the Order of the Phoenix is located at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place."

Hermione smiled.

Nymphadora Tonks sat cross-legged on the dungeon floor and watched the werewolf pace in its cage of greenish-gray metal. 

Occasionally she pressed a hand against her belly, imagining the life and warmth there growing by the day. She was going to be a mother! Soon enough, her own mother had warned her, she would be ready to bemoan her swollen belly, aching back, and sore feet, but she hoped she would never lose this sense of wonder.

What would he be like, this child of theirs? (Her mother hoped for a girl, perhaps one who would finally appreciated all the cute, ribboned and laced dresses Dora had categorically refused to wear as a child.) But though Remus had not actually said as much, she knew he hoped for a son. A son like Harry, maybe, brave and bright and true as a young lion. Dora herself didn't care; any child of theirs would by definition be perfect.

The werewolf threw its head back and howled, startling her out of her thoughts. It was hard to think of this monstrous beast before her as her husband; if she opened its cage door, she knew that it would not hesitate to attack her. Remus hated being seen like this, but she wondered, perhaps foolishly, if it knew her on some level that allowed it to be a little calmer in her presence.

The wolf threw itself against the cage door, and the bars rattled. It pawed at the latch and worried at the solid iron chain with its teeth. She searched its amber eyes, but could find no trace of humanity there. If Remus' worst fears came to pass, would she one day be sitting here watching her husband and her child in separate cages, flinging themselves at the bars at each other?

She shuddered and shook her head. She of all people couldn't think like that. She was a problem-solver, not a worrier. If worse did instead come to worst, she'd find a way to deal with it.

Dora lifted her head at the sound of footsteps and watched a light moving down the stairs. "Tonks?" 

"Wotcher, Hermione. Why are you whispering?"

Hermione stepped off the bottom stair and brushed her hair out of her face. "Sorry, habit. I forgot that Harry put up a privacy ward down here." She sat down next to Dora and handed her a steaming mug. "Here. I thought you could use some hot chocolate."

Dora sniffed the rich aroma of cocoa appreciatively. "Thanks!"

Hermione watched Remus pace around and around his cell. "How is he?"

Dora shrugged. "Same." She drank. "I've been meaning to ask you... Do you think you could try making the Wolfsbane Potion? I asked Mum, but she said it's too difficult for her. You're really good at Potions, though, aren't you?"

Hermione bit her lip. "Not good enough, I'm sorry. Only a qualified Potions Master should make Wolfsbane. I looked at the recipe once, and it's seriously complicated. Not to mention dangerous; it's a balance of about a dozen poisons, and a wrong step could kill Remus. Or the rest of us."

Dora nodded. "That's what I thought. I wonder what kind of hold Dumbledore had on Snape, to get him to make the potion for Remus... I wish good Potions Masters weren't so hard to find."

"Moody and Kingsley don't know any?" Hermione asked.

"From what I've gathered, Aurors and Potions makers don't really get along. There's always that one rare ingredient that you can't legally obtain, like Runespoor eggs or unicorn blood or Acromantula venom, so the best Potions masters have to step outside the law if they want to make a name for themselves." Dora smiled at Hermione. "Don't look so glum. We'll survive. And maybe one of the Muggle-borns we rescue will be a Potions master in hiding."

Hermione smiled. "Maybe. Are you okay still going on missions, though?"

Dora bumped her gently. "Hey, don't you start too. I'm not even showing yet! Besides, I love this. It's way more exciting than the patrols I went on as an Auror."

"I hate this," Hermione told her wryly. "I hate fighting, I hate looking at everyone at the dinner table and wondering if maybe one of you won't make it back tomorrow."

"See, that's just how you can't think or you'll drive yourself crazy with worry. Mum used to be the same way. She'd go on and on about it until I decided I had to move out."

"I think worrying about your children is probably written into your job description as a parent," Hermione responded gently.

Dora patted her stomach. "I guess part of having children is learning what our parents went through, huh? Learning to be properly grateful for them at last."

"Maybe that's why they're so eager to have us settle down and have kids."

Dora peered into Hermione's face. "I don't know how things like this are done in the Muggle world, but aren't you a bit young to be getting that kind of pressure from your parents?"

"Oh no," Hermione laughed. "I was talking in general. My parents would never pressure me about something like that. Though they might be wondering why I've never had a boyfriend."

Dora made a rude noise. "Because most teenage boys are bundles of pretentious emo narcissistic hormones waiting to explode all over you like _Mimbulus mimbletonia_?"

Hermione giggled. "That's so true!"

"And anyway, I never dated until Remus, and that turned out pretty well. My parents are even starting to come around. They were really...concerned, you know, about the age difference. And the lycanthropy, of course. But he would never abuse any power he has over me. I love that about him, how gentle he is deep down. And he loves that I know my own mind and that I'm not afraid to express it. I feel like we complement each other."

Hermione smiled. "I can see that. Were you ever afraid that getting married and having a baby would derail your career, though? I know that you love your job."

Dora ran the thumb of her left hand over the palm of her right, feeling the calluses there from the hours of relentless training. Would they fade away in the time she wanted to spend caring for her baby? Would she ever have a chance to get them back? "Yeah," she finally answered. "That's the part I hate about the DMLE. It's a still very much an old boy' club, and I doubt I would've made it in if I weren't Mad-Eye's protégé. I know there's that whole stigma about a woman with a husband and kid going back to work, like she's betraying her family somehow. But I decided that if that's the way it is, then that's the way it is. If push comes to shove, I'll give up my career for my family."

"That's so unfair!" Hermione burst out. "Men are perfectly capable of cooking and cleaning and caring for children! Here we are almost at the twenty-first century, and--I can't believe society is still unable to accept that! Why is it always women who have to choose?"

Dora grinned at her indignant expression. "When you're Minister for Magic, maybe we won't have to."

Hermione blinked at her. "What?"

"I've seen your 'House-elf Bill of Rights.' And the 'Ideas for Incarceration Reform.' Not to mention the 'Requirements for a Free, Open, and Fact-Checked Press.' Mum picked them up while she was cleaning the other day, and she showed them to me because she wasn't sure who they belonged to. Hermione, what you have are the underpinnings of a political platform, and a damn good one. I mean, Fudge ran on 'Overhaul of the Ministry Message System for the Elimination of Owl Droppings,' so I don't exactly think you'll have much competition."

Hermione huffed a quiet laugh. "And I told _Harry_ to keep his expectations to himself," she murmured to herself. "What if I want it all: the husband, the children, the loving home along with the power and the innovative career and a place at the table?" she asked Dora. "What if I want too much and I start to lose sight of myself?"

"Well, you ask yourself: would a man think of himself as wanting too much if he wanted the same things as you? Then you throw out that answer and make your own decisions. Take it from a Metamorphmagus: the trick to not losing sight of yourself is knowing what you want and what you want to achieve. It has nothing to do with how other people perceive you or how much ambition society thinks you should have to be a proper woman. Or properly a woman."

Hermione ran her hands through her hair. "I'm pretty sure your mother doesn't think I'm proper at all. She offered to teach me her cleaning charms and I told her 'I'm not here to _clean_ ,' like a total brat. My mum would be so ashamed of me."

"Hey, I doubt your parents could ever be ashamed of their brilliant Hermione," Dora grinned. "And don't worry about my mum, she's been on her quest for the perfect daughter since I destroyed everything pink in my room with wild magic when I was three years old."

Hermione chuckled. "Your mum isn't looking for the perfect daughter, Tonks. She already has one."


	19. Chapter 19

Harry Apparated into a side alley off Charing Cross Road and regretted it almost immediately. "Almost," because it took him a minute to look around, tuck his Invisibility Cloak away, and spot Sol pounding down the pavement toward him with a messenger bag bouncing against his back.

Instead of slowing or stopping, Sol grabbed Harry's wrist to pull him along, shouting, "Come on!"

Harry hadn't quite known what to expect when he'd received a call from Sol inviting him out that evening, but he was fairly sure that 'accomplice to a crime' hadn't made the list of possibilities. He briefly traced his career path with a certain rueful amusement: fugitive, law enforcement peon, law enforcement head, outlaw. Ah, well. At least the law enforcement part was making him a better outlaw? 'No experience ever wasted,' and all.

Sol, on the other hand, was an enigma. Wizarding families were known to go to great lengths to erase all mentions of Squibs from their family histories. This was especially true of the Pure-blood ones (no surprise there). Now that Sol had confirmed that he was indeed a Squib, it was a lot easier to understand how he had seemingly burst into the Wizarding world fully fledged, with no record of his past or anyone willing to claim him as family. Like 'Filch,' 'Campion' was unlikely to have been the surname he'd been born into.

Then there was Sol's astonishing ability to mysteriously vanish from any crime scene, which had puzzled the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol for years. In light of his new knowledge, Harry was forced to wonder if "mysteriously vanish" meant the MLEP had been scratching their heads over the lack of traces of Apparition or other magic when Sol had simply...run away.

"Why are we running?" Harry asked, matching Sol's pace.

"Goons!"

Harry threw a look over his shoulder. There were indeed two goons in typical goon-suit, goon-tie, goon-pants, and goon-shoes keeping pace some twenty yards behind them. One sported a crewcut and buckteeth that reminded him of Hermione's when they were younger, while the other wore dark aviator glasses even in the rapidly deepening twilight. Presumably they also had goon-knives tucked somewhere about their persons. At least they were unlikely to also be carrying goon-guns, given that this was London rather than, say, Los Angeles. Harry sketched a shield around them anyway, just in case.

"You said we were getting drinks!"

"We are! After! Don't suppose you'd like to 'help?'" Sol suggested between breaths.

"About as much as you'd like to return that bag you're carrying," Harry returned dryly.

"Guess we're doing it the good old-fashioned way, then," Sol grinned, eyes bright with the excitement of the chase.

"'We?'" Harry sighed.

Up ahead, a third suit-tie-pants-shoes-bedecked goon guarded the doorway to a bookstore, glowering at a fashion magazine upside down and generally sticking out like a Graphorn amongst mountain goats. Behind them Sunglasses had ditched Crewcut and was gaining on them rapidly as they slowed. Graphorn jammed his magazine back onto the shelf still upside-down and parked himself in the middle of the sidewalk. Harry and Sol glanced at each other and somehow managed to pull a plan out of their arses in the 300 milliseconds of their eyes meeting.

Sunglasses lunged for the messenger bag. Harry leapt up to grab the sign hanging over the bookshop, tucking in his legs and sailing cleanly past Graphorn's head with only a tiny bit of cheating. He kicked back sharply against Graphorn's shoulder blades to propel himself to a controlled landing while Sol came in low, dragging Sunglasses with him as he crouched down to slam into Graphorn's legs, flipping him arse over teakettle to loud bellowing punctuated with a crash. Sunglasses went down under two hundred pounds of muscle without so much as a squeak.

They gave each other incredulous looks before setting off again, struggling to contain gales of mirth. They turned the next corner and then another, and Sol tugged Harry into the rubbish-filled space behind a neon-lit adult video store. There he backed Harry into the grungy wall of the store and leaned in close with an elbow above his head, staring deeply into his eyes.

"You have the most beautiful eyes," he murmured.

"Very romantic," Harry turned to whisper into Sol's ear, and managed to hold for a beat of verisimilitude before breaking into snickers. "Too bad it's not working on your goon."

Sol craned his head back to see Crewcut hulking at the head of the passage. "Fuck," he laughed, and pulled Harry into a mad dash down the other end.

It took endless turns, a foray through a shop that Harry was tempted to Obliviate from his memory, two lung-scorching sprints up fire escapes, and three leaps across buildings before they were clear, by which time they were both gasping for breath. Harry decided right then and there to create an exercise room for Grimmauld Place. (Although he had to admit—a parkour course across the rooftops of London also sounded rather tempting.)

"You're all right...for a wizard," Sol panted, leaning with one arm against Harry's shoulder, once they had both recovered somewhat.

"Could you maybe leave the goons at home next time?" Harry heaved.

"What would be the fun in that?" Sol sauntered off. "Come on, wizard, the night is young!

"That's what I'm afraid of," Harry muttered.

Sol led them into a bar called "Fabulous Jill's." It was a small, cozy space softly lit by varicolored hanging blown-glass lights in the shape of lilies. Open booths with tables for two to four people lined one wall opposite a long curved bar area. A tiny stage stood at the front along with clusters of tables for larger groups. They had barely set foot in the door when a drag queen in an iridescent sapphire and emerald dress that looked like it had been inspired by court styles in the time of Louis IV gave a shrill scream and spirited Sol away behind the stage curtain.

Harry looked after them with a small bemused smile. "Don't worry about them, honey," said the bartender, a tiny woman in a white ruffled shirt and blazer who stood 5'2" at most. "They'll be back once they've had a chance to catch up on the latest gossip. What can I get you?"

Harry glanced over the taps and decided on a pint of beer.

"You're a cute one," the woman smiled as she placed the glass on a napkin for him and he thanked her and paid. "It's been a while since Sol brought someone in here."

"Have you known him long?" Harry asked, before taking a sip. The mixture of cloudy hops and tangy pineapple tingled on his tongue, and he idly wondered if Aberforth could be tempted to offer a larger selection at the Hog's Head.

"A few years. They used to play for the shows," she answered fondly, and held out her hand. "I'm Garnet."

"Harry." They shook hands. "You said 'they?'"

"Wild as a black iris, Sol, but they're all right."

The door opened, and a group of Uni kids in a mixture of grunge leather and punk-goth tumbled in on a soft gust of warm summer night air. Harry left Garnet to her work and claimed one of the last remaining tables near the stage. He stretched out with his magic, probing carefully for hints of anything out of place, on a deeper level than the automatic scan he'd done when he had first walked in. Once he was satisfied that everything was as it should be, he pulled back and relaxed into the booth's faux-leather bench, letting his mind empty of plans and stratagems and to-dos. He took another drink of his beer and felt it wash away the last of his tension as it slid cool and golden down his throat.

"Harry."

Harry opened his eyes and smiled up at Sol, who had returned with his—their?—perfectly styled and elegant friend in tow and without the messenger bag. "This is Zephyr. She owns this little hole in the wall. Zephyr, Harry."

Harry rose and bowed over Zephyr's hand in deference to her art. "You have a wonderful place here."

" _So_ polite," Zephyr cooed in delight. "Sorry to steal Sol away, darling, but they never make time for us anymore. You'll stay for the show, won't you?"

"Wouldn't miss it," Harry reassured her, and she clapped her hands in excitement and rushed off to finish her preparations. "You look fantastic," he complimented Sol, who had added dramatic dark eyeliner, a hint of eye shadow, and deep crimson lipstick to their casual ensemble of t-shirt and jeans while they'd been backstage. The effect was striking, and there were definitely a few admiring looks thrown their way from the rest of the bar. Sol seemed oblivious.

"Well, you're a surprise and a half," they commented with raised eyebrows. "What're you having?"

"Unicorn Whisperer," Harry grinned.

"I take back what I just said," Sol rolled their eyes, and went off to push their way through the growing crowd to the bar for their own drink.

"So that's one way to never get carded, huh?" Sol asked idly on their return, sitting down beside Harry and making a half-circle with their finger that Harry took to indicate his glamour. "You okay with drinking that whole thing? You're what, sixteen?"

Harry's turn to roll his eyes. "Seventeen, ta, and I metabolize most types of alcohol too quickly for it to affect me. If you wanted a taste, you could've just asked." He pushed his glass toward Sol.

Sol chuckled and took a sip. "Awful name, odd color, but it tastes all right. For beer." They handed it back. "I'll stick to Scotch."

The crowd was getting noisier. Harry put up subtle privacy and noise-dampening shields. "It sounds like you and this place have a history," he observed.

Sol hesitated for a moment before answering, "I left home when I was your age. Couldn't stand being locked away like a plague carrier anymore." They shrugged. "You know, the usual. Wandered around London for a while with no idea how to actually live among Muggles. Zephyr took me in. She runs a shelter for runaway kids with the profits she makes off this bar. I realize now how lucky I was, because I'm not sure if I'd have survived without her. She has an incredible talent for accepting people for who they are."

Harry nodded. "She and Garnet used 'they' to refer to you. Would you like me to do the same?"

Sol looked down at their Scotch, almost shy. "You don't mind?"

"Not at all." _One day..._ Harry was reminded of what he was fighting for at the oddest moments. "You have a right to choose your own gender identity and to have other people respect your choice, just like everybody else."

Sol scoffed a little. "You're the strangest wizard I've ever met."

"Wizards are just people," Harry shrugged, not without feeling a certain irony at the 180-degree reversal in context from the last time he'd said those words.

"Sure, if you count smug arseholes who have way too much power for anyone's good as 'people.' Wizards judge you by your magic, your parents' magic, the magic of your great-great-great grand-uncle twice removed. They judge you by your blood. How much money you have. Who you marry. How you dress. Your job. Even what House an old hat put you in at school. Who needs that shit?"

"To be fair, Muggles judge you by a lot of those things too," Harry pointed out.

"I can find you ten Muggles in this bar who care about none of those things. Can you find me five wizards or witches in London?"

He'd heard worse indictments of Wizardkind, but not many. "You're right," Harry spread his hands in defeat on the table. "You're right, Sol. Wizarding society has no reason not to be better than it is at making things fairer and more just for its citizens, Squibs included, and to be kinder to non-Wizarding folk."

Sol shook their head. "Sorry. Not your fault, I shouldn't be laying this on you. Besides, you were raised by Muggles, weren't you?"

"Yeah. Borderline abusive, so I was ecstatic when I got my acceptance letter to Hogwarts. I guess we had completely opposite experiences, in a way."

"And now you're 'Undesirable No. 1.' How'd that happen?" Sol asked curiously.

"Well, Lord Thingy's, who's the biggest arsehole wizard of them all, has taken over the Ministry now, and he doesn't like me very much."

Sol sniggered. "Lord Thingy?"

"You-Know-Who made it so that anyone who says his name gets a visit from Death Eaters, so that's what my friends and I call him."

"You're pretty confident that I'm not going to turn you in for the reward, huh?" Sol commented lightly.

Harry thought about listing his reasons and decided to just give them an American-style middle finger instead. "About as confident as you are that I'm not going to turn you or Zephyr in to the Muggle authorities for that messenger bag you were carrying."

"I didn't steal that bag!" Sol protested.

"Really," Harry's voice dripped skepticism.

"I found it in a bin!"

"Which is why three goons were after you."

"It might've been meant as a bribe for some city councilor or other," Sol admitted.

"I'm not even going to ask how you knew where to look," Harry shook his head

"Trade secret," Sol said smugly. "Speaking of— When you said you wanted to break into Gringotts so you could save the world, you weren't kidding, were you?"

Harry looked Sol in the eye. "What do you think?"

"I think you've got some balls for a scrawny seventeen-year-old kid who hasn't even finished school yet. And I think it's a huge turn-on."

Harry laughed softly. "Does that mean you'll help me?"

"What even makes you think I can? I doubt goblins go around tossing high-security vault keys into trash bins."

"Why'd you steal the goblins' lounge key the other day, then?"

"My—I've heard that goblin-forged metal has strange properties, and I was curious."

"They only take in that which makes them stronger?" Harry recalled.

"Do they? That's interesting," Sol mused. "No, I meant that they're supposed to pick up resonances from each other at a distance if you find the right frequencies."

Harry blinked. "Like a communication device?"

"I thought I'd build up a collection and make the coolest ever theremin out of them."

Harry almost spat out a mouthful of beer. "And you call me a lunatic."

Sol leaned back and smiled. "Tell you what, help me steal another key and we'll see. Maybe it'll give you some clues about all this world-saving you want to do."

What could Harry do except shake his head ruefully and smile? "It's a deal."

The show started soon after that, and Harry sat back and allowed himself to enjoy the genial, responsive atmosphere. He'd never had a head for fashion, and had grown wearier by the year of all the pomp and circumstance that expected him at their center after the war, to Ginny's dismay. But he could appreciate all the work that went into transforming these artists into the fantasy selves they were bold enough to envision, and he clapped and whistled loudly along with the Uni students, to Sol's surprise and delight.

For the last song, Sol stepped in for the piano player and accompanied Zephyr on a rendition of a song called "A Piece of Sky." It brought down the house, and Harry stood with the other guests to give her a well-deserved ovation. As an encore, Sol went into the energetic opening bars of "Great Balls of Fire," and everyone joined in. It rather reminded Harry of Hogwarts students singing the school song, but instead of Dumbledore conducting, there was Sol, grinning wildly, head bopping, curls bouncing, their fingers leaping from key to key as if electrified. Harry was laughing so much he barely managed to wheeze out the chorus.

It was a wonderful way to end the night. Harry was still smiling, humming a little when he arrived back at Grimmauld Place, and he detoured into the drawing room when he saw the light still on. Hermione and Ron were talking quietly together, facing each other on the two sofas. "Hi you two."

"Harry! You're back!" Hermione patted the spot next to her. "Ron's brought news."

"What is it?" He sat down next to her.

"Kingsley got ahold of an early proof of tomorrow's _Daily Prophet_." Ron held up the paper and pointed at the headline, which read:

**Malfoy Heir Mourns Philanthropist Father**  
_Lucius Malfoy, a noble light of the Wizarding World, found dead of multiple curse-related injuries_

These were followed by an image of Draco Malfoy in formal robes, crying.

"We think it might be faked," Hermione suggested tentatively as Harry took the paper and read through the article.

When he was done, he handed it back to Ron and leaned his head back, staring up at the dusty, cobwebbed ceiling. "No, I don't think so. They said the body was examined by multiple Aurors, who found wounds consistent with a newly-invented Dark curse which inflicts deep slashes as from a sword. That's _Sectumsempra_. And Draco Malfoy isn't faking in that picture."

"But why would Lord Thingy kill Malfoy?" Ron questioned.

"Why does Lord Thingy do anything?" Harry shrugged. "To make an example out of him, maybe. He's not particularly tolerant of mistakes, and Lucius Malfoy's made two huge ones: the disappearance of Ollivander and the escapes during the Ministry take-over. I snapped his wand after I stunned him. Maybe Lord Thingy decided he didn't need Malfoy anymore."

"You snapped his wand?" Ron's eyes went wide. "But...but... you can't just do that to another wizard!"

Hermione snorted. ""Another wizard,'" she quoted, _sotto voce_.

"Why not?" Harry asked ruthlessly. "Other wandmakers are still open, even if Ollivander's gone."

Ron squirmed. "Well, you just don't!" he spluttered.

"Because Ron thinks it's a form of castration," Hermione supplied with honeyed malice.

"Not _me_ , a lot of wizards do!" Ron protested, going red.

Harry looked at Hermione with raised eyebrow. "I'd say the social contract's good and broken at this point, wouldn't you?"

"On that point?" Hermione smiled sweetly. "Oh, yes."

"You two are scaring me here," Ron groaned. "Can we please focus? They're saying you killed Lucius Malfoy, Harry."

"Or rather, the _Prophet_ is letting Draco Malfoy make that claim without any attempt at proper background or context at all, which amounts to the same thing," Hermione added.

"Yeah, that's rather the point, isn't it? Note that the byline isn't Rita Skeeter, who has a huge following; they actually found someone who doesn't have a proven bias against me for once. And part of what Draco says is true—I did use that curse on him just a few months ago."

"Poor Draco," Hermione bit her lip, looking at the picture.

"'Poor Draco,' that sneaky little ferret?! Have you forgotten that he let Death Eaters into Hogwarts?" Ron growled.

"No, but he was acting under duress! And I can feel sorry for someone we know for losing his father, can't I, and still despise said father for all the evil he did in the world?"

"No!" Ron shouted.

They all looked at each other for a moment and burst into laughter.

"Emotional range of a teaspoon, remember?" Ron snorted, still chuckling.

"Emotional consistency," Harry smirked.

"Emotional constipation," Hermione muttered.

"I heard that!" Ron exclaimed. "Still, they did a pretty good job of making the old snot of an Erumpent look good, didn't they? Look at all those charities: Society for Preservation of Traditional Values—"

"Where 'traditional' translates to 'racist, sexist, Muggle-hating, and bigoted,'" Hermione retorted.

"Wizarding Family Council—"

"Their motto even states 'the pure of blood reign supreme.'"

"Independent Muggle Action Network—"

"Which compares Muggles to Inferi and encourages vigilante actions against them."

"The Young Witches Defense Project—"

"Defending young witches from tall, dark, handsome Muggle-borns since 1562."

"Wizards for Civil Discourse—"

"Because carting your political enemies off to Azkaban is perfectly fine as long as you do it politely."

"Foundation for Magical Studies—"

"Which somehow consistently finds that Pure-bloods perform better than Muggle-borns and Half-bloods _and_ that wizards perform better than witches _and_ that descendants of white European wizards perform better than those of other races on magical aptitude tests despite centuries of documented evidence to the contrary."

Ron tossed the paper over his shoulder. "Evil git. Good riddance, I say."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're wondering: Unicorn Whisperer is a real beer, but Fabulous Jill's isn't a real bar (that I know of, sorry).


	20. Chapter 20

The repercussions of the article couldn't be so easily dismissed, of course. Two small independent rescue operations led by former DMLE pulled out of working with the Order. Harry encountered increasingly open suspicion when he went out on missions. Some Muggle-borns elected to voluntarily comply with the Muggle-born Registration Act. Some Muggle-borns decided to chance escape on their own, were caught, and sent to Azkaban. Some Muggle-borns disappeared for good. Harry and Moody reached a mutual agreement for Harry to take a less active role in the Order. Harry firmly countered his guilt-bearing brain-ferrets with logic: he was not responsible for Lucius Malfoy's murder, he had no control over what the _Daily Prophet_ printed about him, or whether people chose to believe a newspaper that routinely printed provable lies, or how they went about trying to ensure their own safety. Much of the time it helped. When it didn't, he distracted himself with work.

There was, in fact, plenty to do. Dean had moved in, along with Remus, Tonks, and Tonks' parents. That meant some enlargening of rooms into Wizard-space was in order, along with the creation of more bathrooms. Eventually he decided to rework the entire plumbing system and give each bedroom its own en-suite bath. He deemed the energy expenditure and four days of low-level headaches a worthwhile investment when he no longer had to spend every meal listening to at least one person complain about someone else's washroom habits, a disproportionately large number of which seemed to feature Moody.

To which the ex-Auror usually complacently expostulated: "Wizards in the Sixteenth (or Seventeenth or Eighteenth) century..."

"Yes, but could you please remember to flush twice next time," was the typical response, sometimes accompanied, depending on how theatrically-inclined the speaker was, by gagging and retching.

Anyway. Welcome to the Twentieth Century, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.

The end of August brought them two more house-guests in the form of Xenophilius and Luna Lovegood. Their latest issue of _The Quibbler_ had contained an exposé on Draco's rivalry with Harry as well as the Malfoy heir's role in Albus Dumbledore's death. It had sold out within hours and brought them an unprecedented following along with a series of visits from the Ministry and Death Eaters (not that anyone could really tell them apart these days). It hadn't taken much argument for Xenophilius to decide that he'd rather exercise his freedom of the press rights from somewhere safer than a house which stood close enough to the Burrow to have witnessed the flashes of spellfire from the upper floors.

So Harry was occupied for a while longer transforming a room to Xenophilius' specification for his printing press with added niche and enchanted window for his bust of Rowena Ravenclaw and her headdress, which apparently absorbed wisdom from starlight. At least he hadn't come into possession of the Erumpent horn yet.

On the last day of August, Harry met Sol at the café across the street from Gots & Grint. It was late afternoon, and the muggy heat that had moved in for the weekend had chased most of the remaining foot traffic indoors.

Harry felt a distinct relief in getting out of the house for a little while. Now that the more urgent problem of bathrooms had been resolved and the fact that they would all be living in close quarters for a while had sunken in, a hundred little disagreements had made their presence felt seemingly overnight.

There were the long-simmering disputes like Remus and Tonks' quarreling over when precisely she should cease her Order duties. Remus had been unwise enough to use the old-fashioned term 'confinement,' at which point Tonks' hair had flamed scarlet. She had stalked out of the room, somehow knocking over the cauldron of burn salve Ted and Remus had been ladling into jars with a wayward elbow on the way out.

Though they had both despised her father Cygnus Black III, Andromeda and Moody bickered endlessly over whether an accident suffered while serving as Junior Minister for the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes was cause, effect, or had no bearing on his many vices, which included drinking, gambling, listing the genealogy of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black in most excruciating detail at the slightest provocation, Muggle-baiting, and an unhealthy obsession with mooncalves. Moody entirely disclaimed that last.

Andromeda had offered to teach Luna and Hermione her arsenal of cleaning spells. While Luna had accepted in her usual dreamily cheerful fashion, Hermione had coolly declined and started going out of her way to avoid the other woman. Kreacher, apparently feeling his territory threatened, had embarked on deep-cleaning the house from top to bottom with maniacal zeal. Subsequently everyone spent a few days wandering around searching for the book they'd just put down, or that one sock that had somehow migrated under the bed and vanished, or the favorite quill they'd left somewhere without thinking. Even Percy had snapped and sworn bloody retribution on the next person to move his papers.

Harry himself endeavored to avoid Xenophilius, who was supposedly writing a profile on him, but kept asking him questions like "Have you ever tried Celeste Goshawk's cure for Wrackspurts?" "Can you comment on a source's assertion that you are on a quest to learn the ancient Asian art of Spiritual Cultivation in order to battle evil spirits?" "Have you ever grown hair in an unexpected location after being bitten by a Muggle?" ("Tell him the back of your eyeballs," Ron had guffawed after overhearing.)

Dean and Ted, usually the most level-tempered and good-natured of their little company, shocked everyone one evening by almost coming to blows over the merits of the West Ham United and Millwall Football Clubs. Fortunately they quickly made up their short but vicious row, and now spent hours each day testing out various methods of getting reception to the games in the house.

It was almost as bad as living with three teenagers again.

"So how are we doing this?" Harry asked as he and Sol shared a chocolatine.

"Dunno. Winging it's always worked for me," Sol shrugged.

"And I suppose I'm here to whisk you out of trouble if it all goes pear-shaped."

"Why else would I have a wizard for a partner if I'm not even getting blowjobs out of it?"

Harry sighed. "I hate to think what you were like as a teenager."

"Pure as the driven snow," Sol smirked. "I didn't even know what a blowjob was."

Harry doubted that very much, but decided not to pursue that line of questioning for the sake of his own sanity. He left Sol in the café ten minutes before the scheduled arrival of the Gringotts goblin. He cast a Disillusionment charm over himself on an empty street and took up position near the bank's private back entrance.

The car arrived right on time. The driver, a heavyset Asian man in full chauffeur's uniform, stepped around the vehicle to open the back door on the passenger side. A goblin wearing shaded glasses and a hat that covered his ears stepped out carrying a briefcase. It was impossible to tell whether it was the same goblin he'd glimpsed last time. But he had no time to worry about that, because something much more troubling had caught his eye.

The goblin had not come alone. Someone was still in the car. A wizard? A guard? A Death Eater? They were a vague shape behind the tinted windows, a shadow behind shadows. Harry cautiously crept around the long vehicle, as smoothly as he could in order to preserve the effects of the Disillusionment. Finally he reached the front and stared through the windshield. He stiffened. Even in profile the wizard was unmistakable as the same man he had dueled at the Ministry. His blond hair nearly brushed the top of the cream-leather roof. He was staring pensively through the side window and didn't seem to have noticed Harry.

He had to warn Sol. The glamour he'd cast on them would work on the goblin but not on the wizard. He moved back out of direct line-of-sight and dialed the mobile he had given Sol earlier. There was no answer. Then he saw the goblin exit the bank with his briefcase and Sol trailing behind. He dialed Sol again. This time they picked up.

"What?" They hissed, turning and putting a hand to their ear like a harried Uni student who'd just received a call from their mother. 

The goblin didn't seem to have noticed anything wrong. He would reach the car in a few seconds.

"Sol, abort," Harry enunciated softly but clearly into the mobile. "There's someone else in the car. A wizard. Maybe a Death Eater. Abort. Do you hear me?"

Sol looked up at the car, and their eyes went wide. The call ended. Then Sol sprinted for the goblin, who turned just as Sol went past him, jostling him slightly, and skidded to a halt next to the car—next to the blond wizard.

_What?_

Harry's hand tightened on his wand, ready to cast, but unable to make a decision to do so.

Sol tried to open the door, but it appeared to be locked. They wrenched at the handle. "Open this door!" they shouted, pounding on the glass.

For a moment all of them froze at the bizarre scene. Even the wizard in the car appeared stunned. He hadn't reached for his wand; he just sat there staring at Sol as if he couldn't believe what was happening.

What _was_ happening? Was it all an act? Was this what Sol had meant by "winging it?"

"Step back, sir." The driver came around. "Sir, I am asking you to step away from the car!" When Sol ignored him, he physically wrenched them away and shoved them back a little, though not cruelly. The goblin had already climbed in. The driver opened his door, got in, and started the engine. That seemed to break Sol out of whatever paralysis they were in. "No! Wait!" They began chasing after the car as it drove away. "Wait!" At first it almost seemed as if their outstretched hand might catch the door handle again. Then the car reached the main road and gained speed until it vanished from their sight, Sol's last anguished "Stop!" chasing after it still even as their feet slowed and finally stumbled to a stop.

Harry reholstered his wand and ended the Disillusionment as he stepped into a pool of shadow beneath an overpass. Sol was still standing in the middle of the small side road, their eyes red-rimmed and blood-shot, staring after the car. Shite. Not an act, then. Harry took their arm and led them onto the sidewalk as the discomforted glances of pedestrians grazed them before looking away. "Sol," he called softly. "Sol, what happened?"

They wiped the back of their hand against their eyes. "Nothing," they answered roughly. "Nothing happened. Just someone I thought I recognized. I was wrong."

_Sol knows that man?_

_Who the hell...?_

He wasn't sure at that moment whether he most wanted the question answered about Sol or the man in the car. Was Sol connected somehow with the potential Death Eater? If so, was it Harry's business? How much danger did Sol pose to either him or the Order? Quite possibly a lot, he decided. If they told Voldemort or one of his henchmen that Harry was trying to break into Gringotts to 'save the world'...

Had he been foolish to trust Sol? It had been an instinctive thing, made in a split-second decision on that rooftop of their first meeting. Or even before, in the café, when they'd read Snape's translation out loud... Harry's instincts had always been good when it came to the people he chose to trust, and had gotten even better after his years in the DMLE. But did he have the right to balance the outcome of this war on a leap of faith? 

The truth was, Harry was not a purely logical thinker. True, nobody was 100% logical, but he knew that he sometimes chose to fly in the face of logic. For instance, if Hermione were here, she would cite Sol's lack of magic, their maybe connection to a maybe Death Eater, their disdain for the Wizarding world, their willingness to go off-script on a mission, and even (ironically) their tendency to make off with other people's property all as reasons to disengage. Harry had no logical way to refute any of that. And it would be easy, wouldn't it, to Obliviate Sol and go on his merry way? 

On the other hand... On the other hand, why wouldn't Sol have revealed Harry's presence if they wanted to betray him?

"Do you want to go back to the café?" Harry asked, feeling at a loss. 

"No, I don't want to go back to the café. I want a bloody drink," Sol growled. "And stop looking at me like that, like I'm going to—to break apart on you. I am not going to shatter like—like some goddamn—" A sob rose in their throat, and they stopped abruptly. 

"It's all right," Harry said quietly, as Sol turned away and fought to control their breathing. "Let's go get that drink, okay? I'll Apparate us." He held out his hand, and after a moment Sol took it.

Harry led them back under the overpass and Apparated them into the same alleyway off Charing Cross Road from last time. Sol tilted their head in thought for a moment, then led them down a few streets into a bar with an already-lively Sunday evening crowd filling the dance floor.

Harry claimed a spot for them at the bar while Sol disappeared into the loo. He ordered Scotch for them both and sipped his as he did a thorough magical scan. When Sol emerged from the toilets and took the seat next to him, it was as if the scene at the car hadn't happened at all. "Let's celebrate." They playfully flicked their wrist upward and caught a small golden key out of midair. 

Harry huffed a startled laugh. "You got it!"

"Don't sound so surprised," Sol mock-pouted. "This wasn't my first rodeo."

Harry pushed Sol's Scotch over to them. "Nice work, buckaroo." He waited until Sol had a sip. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"There's nothing to talk about."

"I've fought with that man in the car before. He was at the Ministry the day it fell. If you can tell me anything about him—"

"I can't. I told you, I only thought I recognized him."

"If what happened at the car—"

"It won't happen again," Sol cut him off. "Relax, Harry. You're like a hundred-year-old pruney bloke inside the body of a teenager. You're gonna get wrinkles before you're thirty."

"Wrinkles," Harry muttered.

_See? You're destroying my youthful good looks._

_Oh, you're gonna side with them now?_

"Did you know that G&G's vault is guarded by a ghost?" Sol twirled the golden key between their fingers. "I heard it was even featured on the telly—'The Most Haunted Bank in the World.' Not that the cameras caught anything but a faint blur. The story goes that it once single-handedly took on a gang of armed robbers. One died of a heart attack, one disappeared for good, and one went insane."

As a diversionary tactic it was effective, he had to admit. "A ghost did that?" He'd never met a spirit capable of inflicting more than a medium-grade chill on even Muggles, and all the claims of deadly poltergeists he'd investigated had turned out to have mundane explanations, if you counted 'a deadly curse cast on a tureen to kill whoever put tomato soup in it on a full-moon Monday night' in the same ballpark as 'mundane.'

Sol shrugged. "Who knows? Wizards didn't care, because they were Muggles, and the Muggles loved it. Business at the bank went up by 300%."

"When was this?" Harry asked curiously.

"1950s? 1960s? Around there. That bank has never had a successful break-in since."

"Huh." That would mean it had a better record than even Gringotts, though no wizard (and certainly no wizard of Voldemort's power) had probably been interested enough to try. "Are you planning to be the first, then?"

"Don't suppose you'd like to 'help?'" Sol smirked.

"Pass," Harry rolled his eyes.

Sol shrugged philosophically, threw back their drink, and emerged with bright eyes and an infectious grin. "Well?" 

Harry raised an eyebrow in amused inquiry. "Well what?"

"You're not gonna make a wallflower out of me, are you?"

It took a second for Harry to comprehend their meaning. "You want me to dance? Oh no, no way. You have no idea how ridiculous I look when I dance."

Sol gave him a pointed up-and-down. "I can only surmise that whoever you danced with before had no idea how to _move_."

Harry chuckled and shook his head wryly. He indicated the teeming mass of bodies on the dance floor bouncing and writhing with the music. There had been plenty of glances their way, and he was certain Sol had noticed too. "I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding a partner."

"But I want _you_." They hopped off the stool and held out a hand, challenge in their eyes. The full force of Sol's charm was equal to any spell, Harry thought wryly as he sighed and took it.

"You're gonna regret this—don't tell me later that I didn't warn you."

Sol only pulled him by the hand onto the dance floor, where he could feel the beat of the music in the soles of his feet. He'd always hated dancing, had done ever since that disastrous Yule Ball in his fourth year. There had been numerous events since then, dinners and ceremonies and weddings and other balls, and he'd always escaped after the first obligatory feet-shuffling with Ginny. Eventually she'd learned not to ask him for more, though not without several arguments in the interim.

But Sol—Sol loved to dance. It was in their every movement, the lift of their head, the sway of their thighs, the twist of their hips, the unself-conscious grace twining sinuously through their every movement. At first Harry only stood and watched, smiling at how joyous and carefree they looked here, so completely in their element, until Sol put their hands lightly on his hips and whispered into his ear, "Just feel the beat and move. No one knows you here; all you have to do is let yourself go."

Harry let his head fall back and his eyes drift shut beneath Sol's touch. He couldn't deny the seductive power of those words, of the freedom they promised, brief and illusionary though it might be. He'd never really been free, had he? The chains of destiny had always bound him too tightly for any divergence off its narrow berm. How had Sol known that he sometimes craved a taste of what he might feel if he were truly a seventeen-year-old who could dance the whole night away and wake up the next morning without a care in the world?

He allowed the music to carry every stray thought out of his mind, let it seep into his muscles and his bones, let it possess him and take him over. He merged with the throbbing beat, moving with an effortless, breathless delight that was akin to flying. He stayed for the next song and the next, sweat darkening his hair and the back of his shirt, losing track of time and allowing himself to revel in that luxury. He opened his eyes to see Sol staring at him, their eyes wide and dark. And then Sol was pulling him away, pushing him up against a shadowed wall, kissing him with all the coiled passion of their dancing. Harry reciprocated, cupping Sol's face with his palm and gentling the kiss until Sol pulled away, their expressive eyes filled with the loss Harry had seen earlier on the street.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have..."

"It's all right." He hadn't kissed anyone, or felt an urge to, after his decades-long marriage to Ginny had ended. It had been...nice. But nice in the way of connection, closeness...friendship.

"Come home with me tonight," Sol whispered.

Harry touched their cheek gently. "It won't help anything."

"I don't care. I just want to feel something other than numb for one night."

Harry let his hand fall to Sol's shoulder, then away. "I'm sorry."

"You're a fucking bore. Do what you what, then. I'm gonna go get laid."

 _Sol._ Whatever pain Sol was endeavoring to forget, Harry knew that it was beyond his ability to heal, but it hurt all the same. He knew then that he would never be able to point his wand at Sol with _Obliviate_ on his tongue. He only hoped nobody would end up paying for it. He leaned forward to kiss their cheek. "Be safe." 

Sol inhaled as if had Harry punched them, and walked away without another glance. This time, when they began to dance again, the sense of loss was plain for all to see, raw and electric and entwined with something so deeply sexual that it drew every eye to them. 

"Your friend is quite the dancer," someone said at his elbow. In the dim light he resembled a younger, healthier version of Remus, though with darker hair and large chestnut eyes that were clear of pain. More Labrador than wolf.

"Yes, they are," Harry answered politely. Sol was now moving oblivious at the center of a circle of men and women all vying for their attention, spellbound.

"Will you be joining him again?"

"I don't think so, no."

"Can I buy you a drink, then?" Harry blinked, feeling very slow, and took another look at the man. When Harry didn't answer immediately, he moved a little closer, murmuring, "I'm sure you've heard this before, but you're a beautiful man."

 _Beautiful._ He knew what he would look like when he needed two house-elves' help to climb out of bed in the morning. When his age-spotted hands grew gnarled and stiff as tree roots, too swollen with the ache of a storm sometimes to write. When all that remained of his hair were thin white wisps that deigned to obey a comb at last only when nobody cared whether or not he brushed it.

He had a flash of memory, of long-fingered hands chopping, stirring, moving gracefully over a dozen cauldrons and back again as if through an intricate choreography. He closed his eyes and saw wards rising like woven spidersilk against the deep blue sky. 

He longed, suddenly, for his little grassy knoll by the sea. It would be different now, of course. Empty. He smiled tightly at the man. "Thank you, but I think I'll be heading home. Good night."


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with me through the _bloody_ slow build. Now only the slow burn is left. ;)
> 
> I really appreciate all your comments and kudos!

The First of September began, fittingly enough, with a dream of Hogwarts.

He was gliding through the murky, gray-lit underwater forest of the Black Lake toward the village of the merpeople. Though Moaning Myrtle wasn't here to guide him this time, he swam unerringly south-southwest, straight for the center of the lake. He traveled, it seemed, for a very long time; vast expanses of black mud molded into ripples and eddies by invisible currents flowed endlessly below him, broken here and there by pale porous stones and patches of undulating wide-bladed grass. The world-above began to slip away from him, and then time. As he skimmed along, he began to dream of another life, another self.

He was walking through a small tranquil Welsh town called Llanwrtyd Wells, wending past homes and shops, the spa and the old woolen mill, the simple little church built at the end of the last century, his magic stretching out around him in all directions, looking for a spark, seeking an echo of itself among the hustle and bustle of ordinary life. There was nothing. He Apparated. Cefn-gorwydd: farms and cottages of brick and rough-hewn stone; Tirabad: bordered by tall conifers, whitewashed houses with roofs covered in lichen and moss, acres of open green fields dotted with sheep...

Places and names blurred past him. Llandeilo'r-Fan, Pentre-bach, Pentrefelin, Pentre'r-felin, Trecastle. No, he hadn't gotten to Trecastle that day. He puzzled over the large painted rock in front of him until he realized that it was the rock that stood at the entrance to the merpeople's village. He was here, finally, after all his searching.

He saw the mer-statue rise from the center of the village square, the four waxen figures bound to its tail by long strands of lake-weed, their hair floating like halos around their faces. Snape was tied between Hermione and Cho Chang. The pale rigidity of his face sent unreasoning panic into Harry, as if one of the surrounding merpeople had skewered him with a spear made of ice. His wand was already in his hand; his voiceless spell sliced through every bond, and he stood his ground as the former prisoners floated upward and the merpeople reached for him angrily, crying "You get one only!" in their harsh croaking voices.

"Their lives are not a _game_ ," he roared, bubbles streaming out of his mouth, and the merpeople flinched back from him, pearl-gray hands pressed around their ears. He summoned all their spears to him and lashed them to the mer-statue's tail with strands of water weed.

The rising figures were already halfway to the surface, and Harry propelled himself after them. But he saw only three; where was Cho? He looked around wildly in the gloom. She was nowhere to be found. "Cho!" he shouted.

"I've got her, Harry," said a familiar voice. Harry looked down. Cedric rose majestically through green-gray murk, handsome bubble-charmed head stuck onto a balloon-body with spindly arms and legs sticking out like squeakers from a bagpipe. One of his hands clutched Cho's ankle, hauling her upwards after him upside-down.

"That doesn't look very comfortable," Harry commented as Cedric floated past.

"At least I'm not starkers," Cedric replied placidly.

Harry's eyes popped open as he fell off the side of the bed. He lay on the floor and stared up at the cobweb-less ceiling for a while. 

_Let's swear never to eat cheddar before bed again._

_I doubt cheese had anything to do with that._

_At least the floor's clean now._

From then on, nothing seemed to go right. He put sugar in the scrambled eggs, butter in the coffee, and salt on his toast. Moody had to ask him twice to pass the hash, and when he did, it was the plate of sausages. He somehow melted the bronze practice dummy Tonks had proudly contributed to the training room, which she'd "made impervious to every curse in the Aurors' Handbook." When he reformed it out of the shimmering puddle on the floor, it more resembled a giant bunny which had stolen all of the Dursleys' carrots than anything humanoid. He sat in on the testing for communication spells, and fidgeted so much that Hermione had to banish him from the room. He volunteered to chop Gurdyroots for a Wound-Cleaning Potion, but knocked over a jar of newt eyeballs and then smashed two bottles of Pepper-Up Potion while scrambling to pick them up. He banished himself from the Potions lab with Andromeda's cool glare sending icy shivers down his spine. He hoped he would never again have the chance to notice how similar she looked to her sister Bellatrix when she was annoyed.

Lunch was a disaster best left unexamined. Suffice to say that it left a perfectly circular stain smelling of onions, garlic, and stewed beef on the ceiling, a large jagged crack in Kreacher's beloved range, and Kreacher himself in hysterics.

After that he meekly accepted the Calming Draught Hermione offered him and slunk off to his room for a long nap.

When he woke, he checked everything in his mokeskin bag twice, then stood blankly for half an hour in front of his closet terminally undecided about what to wear. The thought of putting on student robes under these circumstances made his skin crawl, though it seemed practical from a camouflage point of view. He imagined Snape seeing him in them, and cringed. A definite no. He decided on something resembling the cut of Auror robes, but unadorned and in black. Midnight-blue? Forest-green? Ugh. Black it was.

Finally he was ready.

_No, not ready. Not even a little ready._

_This is ridiculous. You're ridiculous. What does it matter what we wear? Nobody will see us anyway, except Snape. And he won't care as long as we're not **actually** starkers. I mean, he'll probably have a heart attack either way, so..._

_AAAAAGH._

_I think Hermione has more Calming Draught._

He pinched himself just to be sure. He decided to forgo the Calming Draught.

He Apparated into Hogsmeade an hour before the train was due to arrive and made his way slowly through the gathering dusk by foot to a spot near the castle gates. He waited there, looking up at the castle as it came aglow, the sight still enough to take his breath away even after all these years, magical as it was in the best sense, equal parts wonder, mystery, and hope.

But however much the same it seemed from the outside, Hogwarts would be very different for the returning students this year--not least due to the Dementors waiting at the gates. He wondered where Snape was now, what he was thinking. His wards had faded back into invisibility, quiescent. Was Hogwarts still home? Or had Dumbledore taken even that from him, with his death and the promises he had extracted?

Harry turned slightly at the sound of the first carriages coming down the road. The gates creaked open in the distance. His friends passed by, silent and glum. Disillusioned, he changed into his Animagus form and hopped onto the back of the carriage, letting it carry him undetected through the entrance. Once inside, he shifted back, slipped past the First Years through the front doors, and trod slowly and silently down the corridors until he reached the stone gargoyle guarding the way to the Headmaster's Office. He carefully checked for other presences before stepping towards it. "Dumbledore," he murmured. The statue looked around with a faintly puzzled air but moved aside to reveal the hidden staircase. Harry stepped in and let it carry him to the top.

The door to the office opened to his touch, and he walked into the darkened room. A few portraits lifted their heads and looked questioningly at the door as it closed. Albus Dumbledore was asleep or feigning it behind the Headmaster's desk. Harry cast sleep on them all with a whispered word. 

He conjured a chair for himself facing the door and sat, exhaling deeply. Only the wait was left. Harry had gotten better at it over the years, but that didn't mean he liked it. He forced himself to take deep, even breaths. He let his mind wander, skipping thoughts like stones over the surface of a lake. Time passed excruciatingly slowly, but it passed.

At last the door to the office opened, and then he was there. Harry's breath caught. His heart felt like it had suddenly migrated to his throat, and a rushing sound deafened his ears. If he had been standing, he would probably have slid to the ground. As it was, he could not have stood for all the galleons in Gringotts. He canceled the Disillusionment. Snape looked up as he shimmered back into visibility. They stared at each other, equally stunned.

_Say something._

_He's so young._

_Uh...no?_

_He doesn't even have silver in his hair yet._

_Didn't you have a speech all planned out and everything?_

_He's the Half-Blood Prince._

_What._

_And that little boy who dreamed of the freedom and the wonder that magic would bring him. I thought I remembered everything about his magic. The way it swept into a room like the icy wind before the first snowfall..._

_Did Hermione slip something into the Calming Draught? Are you high right now?_

_But it's wilder than that, and more controlled. I can feel it from here. A bottled thunderstorm. Electricity sparking against my skin._

_Ugh, really? If you make us cry I'm going to make a visit to that exorcist myself._

The fine hairs along his arms were rising, and Harry shivered.

_Fine, **I'll** say something._

"Er..."

" _Petrificus totalus_ ; _obliviate!_ "

_Fuck._

Harry woke abruptly in darkness a few seconds later, his head throbbing. 

_What happened? Where are we?_

_Hogsmeade, Order safe house. Apparated just after the Obliviation hit._

_Just AFTER? Why do we remember being hit with it, then?_

_Automatic mental defense mechanism. Hurts like hell, though._

_Defense mechanism, wonderful. Couldn't you have, you know, blocked before it hit?_

_How am I supposed to raise a wand against him now, after everything?_

_Oh great, very noble of you. Too bad he didn't get the memo._

_At least he didn't have a heart attack. The way this day is going, I'm just happy I didn't set his books on fire._

_No, he actually did something that made sense, rather than stare like a pole-axed mooncalf. Wait a minute..._ He just realized something. _Did you say—_

_Let's try that again..._

Harry Disapparated outside the office door. _Hah! Thank you, Hogwarts!_

_What? How?_

_I'm not sure, exactly, but I wonder if Hogwarts itself recognizes me somehow... The wards let me in, and so did the gargoyle... Then there was that time Dumbledore said I would always be welcome, and the fact that Minerva never did revoke the access she gave me after I stood in for her that one time... Put it all together, and maybe...? That's my hand-wavy everything-and-the-kitchen-sink explanation, anyway._

_So what, we can Apparate inside the castle now?_

_Maybe not everywhere, but in or around the Headmaster's Office, yes._

_We're definitely gonna give Snape a heart attack this time._

_I hope not._

He drew his wand.

_What are you doing?_

_Sending a memo._

He concentrated for a moment. The silver stag landed on the floor in front of him, and he whispered to it. His Patronus stepped lightly through the door into the office.

_"I come in peace?" You are such a dork. What happened to the pruney hundred-year-old bloke?_

The double oaken doors swung open. Harry walked inside slowly, hands held up in the universal gesture of 'I intend no harm,' his wand firmly holstered. The room was dim, lighted only by a softly glowing globe on the gigantic desk. Behind it sat Snape, his face deathly pale.

Harry cautiously took a seat on a chair conjured by Snape this time. He stared at the desk in silence, eyes tracing its subtle whorls of wood, until he couldn't bear it anymore and looked up, and was instantly mesmerized by the depth of Snape's black eyes. The other man's throat worked for a minute before he finally rasped out, "Am I betrayed, then?"

Something seared through him at Snape's voice, at its rich distinctive tones. It was utterly familiar, as something heard night after night in dreams, and yet so startling in its immediacy that he shivered, lightning-struck, so that it took him a moment to make sense of the question. "What? No!" Harry couldn't believe he hadn't thought of this angle. Where _had_ his mind been? "No," he repeated in a softer tone. "Nobody knows I'm here. As far as I know, nobody on either side suspects your role."

"Indeed. I find it hard to believe, Mr. Potter, that you came by this knowledge without outside help. Explain."

"Erm, heh, I wouldn't say that, exactly. I mean, I genuinely hated your guts for a while there. Nice job with the...er..." There was no possible way he could finish that sentence without either sounding like a complete fool or mortally offending Snape. In fact, he already sounded like a complete fool. How odd that Snape still had that effect on him, after all these years. "Anyway," he rushed to add, "yeah, there was definitely blazing, implacable, fury-of-a-thousand-suns hatred going on. For your guts." Harry coughed. His other self was groaning something about a mental ditch. "Then, er, I was possessed."

Snape's eyes narrowed. "You were possessed," he repeated slowly.

"Or, I guess I'm the possessor? Yeah, so, my uncle had a priest come and try to exorcise me and everything. Oof. This is really complicated. Do you want to just—" he gestured vaguely at this head.

Snape frowned. "Words, Mr. Potter."

"You know, Legilimenize me. I don't mind."

"I think not," Snape spat with unexpected vehemence. 

Harry rocked back a little. "Okay. Right. Uh..." He did, in fact, have a speech prepared, along with a list of Things to Tell Snape. Where had it all gone? No wonder Hermione was always writing everything down. Oh, who was he kidding? He'd been 100% positive that Snape would take him up on the offer to read his mind. So much for the predictive capabilities of his Snape-profile. "So, yes, possession. By, er, myself. I'm...my future self. From another timeline?" He stopped again and gave Snape a pleading look. "Are you absolutely sure you don't want to—" Snape's glare said that he was absolutely sure.

Harry huffed. Of course Snape was going to be difficult. His Snape-profile had gotten that much right, at least. Harry took a deep breath and resigned himself to a very long story.

By the time he finished, Snape's long fingers were buried in his hair. No wonder it'd gotten wilder and wilder throughout his school years, he thought with sympathy. "Are you all right?" he asked softly.

"You've just finished telling me that you were the Master of Death, that you've already died and crossed your own death to another timeline, that you made a bargain with Death, that you have to die again because you carry a part of the Dark Lord's soul within you—and you ask me if I'm all right?"

"There was a large part of that story that wasn't about death, you know. Death was maybe five percent of it."

Snape lifted his head and gave him a look.

"Okay, ten percent, at most. Look, the point is, I'm here because I have a chance to make things better. If you believe me—er, do you believe me?—then I hope...I'd like for us to help each other."

"You mean you want me to spy for you," Snape stated flatly.

Harry paused. That was another obvious thought that hadn't occurred to him until Snape had said it. He was usually a better strategist than this...wasn't he? "No," he answered slowly, yet with the utmost conviction. "No. I don't. I would never want you to spy for me. I'm not Dumbledore." There was so much venom attached to the name that it surprised them both. 

A silence fell. They stared at each other, equally adrift. "...Not that there's anything wrong with being a spy," Harry tried to backtrack, in case he had offended Snape somehow. Wow, that had been completely inane, hadn't it? "I'm just mad at Dumbledore for putting you in that position. Furious, really."

Snape looked down at his hands clenched into two white fists on his desk. "I would say you know nothing about it, but you know everything about it, apparently."

"Snape, you're the bravest man I know," Harry blurted out without thought, and flushed. Merlin, what was the matter with him?

_And I thought I was supposed to be the awkward teenager. I'm cringing over here in my nice cozy ditch, FYI._

In the dim light he couldn't be sure, but when he glanced at Snape's face he thought he detected a faint flush there. They spent the next minutes looking at anywhere but each other. Snape opened and closed his mouth several times as if he kept changing his mind about what to say.

"I am the furthest thing—" Snape finally said, just as Harry dredged up the courage to start:

"Look." He paused, but Snape didn't continue, so he did. "I, er, I know more about you than I have a right to; things that you—the you sitting here in front of me—never told me, and things that maybe you've never told anyone. I can only say that I'm sorry, and that I will never ever bring them up or hold them over you, or reveal them to anyone else. And um...one more thing. In the interest of full disclosure and all." He took a deep breath, but couldn't stop the quiver spreading through his body from the center of his chest. "You...your will stated that you wanted your house to be sold and the proceeds donated to the Cokeworth Centre for Women and Children. In my other life I, ah...bought your house."

Snape leaned back in his chair with his hand covering his eyes.

Harry knew that his face was bright red now, but he forged stubbornly on, knowing he would never again have the courage to say these words. "I thought at first that I could keep it for you in case you were alive somewhere, somehow, and would come back to claim it one day. But you never did. For years I never really thought about it at all. And then I hit a rough patch in my life and needed a place that nobody else knew about, and it became...a sort of refuge to me. I think I fell in love with your books." Now he could see the blush spreading in uneven splotches down Snape's face beneath his hand. "So that's another way you saved my life. I've never...er, I've never said 'thank you' before, so I'm going to say it now. Thank you."

The words hung in the air between them, unwontedly soft, a little hoarse from so much talking. Harry waited, but Snape made no response. He stood slowly. His fingertips touched the smooth surface of Snape's desk, briefly pressing, before lifting away. "I still need to take care of the Horcrux in the castle. Tomorrow night, with your permission?"

Snape nodded without looking at Harry. "After curfew. Use the cloakroom, if you please. I assume from your earlier disappearance that Apparition within the castle is now within your capabilities?"

"This office, at least," Harry confirmed. "Good night, Headmaster." He walked into the cloakroom and Apparated away.

Harry Disapparated on a grassy knoll by the sea. The night was fair, the sea breeze beginning to chill with hints of autumn. The crescent moon winked behind high scudding clouds, and the stars wheeled in their ancient dance far above him. He tilted his head and watched for a while, thinking of something he had once read. About the light of distant stars traveling billions of light-years to reach Earth, so that some of the twinkling dots in the sky were in fact already gone, burnt out by the blaze of their own fires there in the empty vacuum of space. 

What was the soul of a star? Did Death reap that too, the awesome roiling heat of it, which even in its lonely isolation lighted the night for eons, effulgent? 

He blinked away tears. The reaction was settling in, predictably, after the giddiness. _I think I fell in love with your books._ No wonder Snape hated him. Was he ever not a blathering idiot in front of him? 

But already he could feel the tugging again, the amorphous longing. There was still so much he wanted to tell Snape, and to hear his thoughts in return. _I want to be your friend, even though..._ He wished he had years: years to gain his trust, like one gains the trust of a wild creature of the woods; years to step out from the shadows of his parents. The time he had been given was hardly enough to engender a beginning, and all he would leave in his wake was pain. Was it better then not to make the attempt at all?

He sat down with his arms around his upraised knees and leaned back, feeling in his imagination his body cradled by sturdy roots and his head supported by sun-warmed bark. He closed his eyes.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features Tonks, who I think is shamefully underutilized in the books. Don't hate me? I promise there's more Harry/Snape interaction coming next week!

It was on the morning of September Second that Dora joined Kingsley Shacklebolt on a mission into the wild fells of Birmingham. They had consulted with Harry before leaving, and he'd given them the coordinates they were Apparating into now, a narrow strip of concrete between the windowless walls of two council flats. 

They'd started making it standard procedure to check with Harry before missions, and more often than not he provided some odd insight that made their job easier or safer or even possible: coordinates for Apparating in or out; defensible locations big enough to hold large groups of people, like that bookshop in Treves; places to avoid, like Muggle police stations or street corners with Muggle cameras. Once Dora had asked, out of intense curiosity, "How do you know so much about all these places, Harry?"

He'd given her a grin and replied, "Been there, got the t-shirt."

Harry must have a lot of t-shirts. And at least ten with "Newport" on them.

This flat should've made Harry's 'places to avoid' list, Dora thought with wrinkled nose as soon as they stepped inside. The ground floor smelled of alcohol, urine, and cannabis. They hurriedly entered the lift, which was even more noisome. She had pressed the button for the seventh floor before she noticed the sign on the wall: 'Polite Notice: can you refrain from spitting.' Next to that was a decidedly impolite notice: 'Sort out your fucking shit, you fucking tramps.' Dora hurriedly _scourgified_ her hands, clothes, boots, and then the entire lift, though it didn't help with the stench.

"Are you sure...?"

"This was the address they gave," Kingsley replied, though he sounded strained.

The lift disgorged them into a dimly-lit corridor filled with rubbish. A sign on the closest door read, "Please refrain from smoking. Children live here." The floor in front of the door was littered with cigarette butts. A single window looked out upon the blank gray face of the building opposite. Directly beneath it was a glinting still-moist brown pile of what looked like— Dora averted her eyes and decided that she would profusely thank Harry for his renovations—again—once she got home.

Luckily Dora only managed to trip on a trash sack of what sounded like empty beer cans. They stopped in front of a signless door near the middle of the corridor, and Kingsley knocked in a series of alternating patterns. The door opened a crack, and she followed Kingsley in.

Dora almost gasped at the clean, sweet-smelling, white-washed two-room flat within. It was like entering a tiny paradise after the chaos outside. The two men in the room looked even more surreal: identically lean with slanting almond-shaped eyes, dressed in floor-length flowing white robes embroidered with stylized clouds, their long straight black hair trailing loosely to their waists, a narrow ribbon bearing an amulet engraved with clouds sitting against their foreheads, each carried a sheathed sword longer than Dora's arm in his left hand. They clasped their hands along with their swords in front of them in a ritual salute and bowed gracefully toward Kingsley. "Master Shacklebolt."

"Tonks, these are Master Brightfroth Lan Ying Si and Master Lightweaver Lan Yi Fei. They hail from the Lan Sect of Chinese Spiritual Cultivators." Then he switched to Chinese, and Dora hurriedly cast a translation spell. "Masters, this is Nymphadora Tonks of the Order of the Phoenix."

The Cultivators repeated their salute, this time toward her, and she bowed in return.

Kingsley switched back to English after having cast his own translation spell: "But where is Lan Qing Guan? Were we not agreed on the date and time?"

"Our apologies for the delay," Lan Ying Si replied. "Qing Guan insisted on venturing out last night. He is most despondent that we must return to our clan without having completed our mission. He had assured us before he left that he would return before the appointed time."

Dora knew that Kingsley could not afford to be away from his post for long. She asked, "Do you need to go? I can stay."

Kingsley reassured her, "I have a little time."

"Will you not take a seat and take tea while we wait?" Lan Yi Fei indicated two mismatched chairs at a plain round table courteously. On the table was a pretty pale blue vine-patterned porcelain tea set with Asian handle-less teacups.

Kingsley and Dora both sat, and Lan Yi Fei poured for them. Dora took great care not to spill hers. They drank it in the Chinese style, without milk or sugar. The tea was mild, but very fragrant. Dora looked down at the clear greenish liquid in surprise. "I've never tasted tea like this before—it's so good!"

Both of the Cultivators smiled. "It is white tea from our home—the tenderest tips of the plant harvested in Spring. Unlike many teas, it is best served as fresh as possible to bring out its natural fragrance."

Dora inhaled deeply of the scent rising from her cup before taking another sip. She preferred coffee to tea in general, but this was like drinking the heady snow-melt of Spring itself.

Kingsley was looking at her with a smile. She could tell that he was enjoying his own tea quite as much as she was. He must have a interest in Asian culture, given his study of Asian languages and his duties as liaison when the Ministry welcomed visiting dignitaries from that part of the world.

"May I ask about your mission here?" Dora asked. "Is there any way we can help?"

The two Cultivators glanced at each other. Lan Ying Si, who she guessed was around her own age, sighed, "Although Lan Sect affairs are usually private, I suppose it is incumbent on us to tell you the details; we had hoped to make amends for our failures, but given the state of the world, must now regretfully leave them unaddressed."

"Please," Kingsley gestured at the one remaining chair.

Lan Ying Si inclined his head and sat down at the table with his sword resting in front of him. "Master Shacklebolt knows that we are an illustrious sect which teaches the cultivation of the spirit via the Way of the Sword, long known for protecting the land from wraiths, demons, resentful or troublesome spirits, and evil of every description. However, in the time between the Great Wars two of our disciples left the sect, never to return. They made their way here to Great Britain, and we had no news of them for many years.

In recent days a certain troubling rumor reached us, that during the Latter Great War, these two disciples turned to evil; that instead of pacifying the spirits of the dead, they _created_ one or more evil spirits from living souls. I need not tell you that this is heinous crime; it carries a sentence of death. Our clan dispatched us here to investigate these rumors, capture the perpetrators, and exorcise the evil spirits. However, we found the navigation of your modern UK somewhat more complex than we had anticipated, and spent many months here fruitlessly searching..."

Lan Ying Si looked down, blushing faintly. So that was why the squalid digs, Tonks thought sympathetically. They must've run out of money along the way and were too ashamed to ask their clan for more.

"We came upon new information regarding the whereabouts of these fugitives only two days ago, but due to an urgent letter ordering us to return to our clan immediately, were unable to continue our investigation. We will, naturally, turn over all our materials over to you in hopes that you might prevent further harm from being done."

"Thank you," Kingsley responded. "We will—"

He was interrupted by the sound of the telephone in the next room. Through the open doorway, Dora could see Lan Yi Fei approach it as he might a blast-ended skrewt and hold his hand uncertainly over the receiver. He jumped as it rang again, and picked up in a rush, shouting into it as if he were trying to talk to someone in the next flat, "SPEAK!"

He jerked the receiver from his ear as the person on the other side apparently shouted back as loudly. There followed what looked like a very uncomfortable conversation.

When he was done, Lan Yi Fei calmly replaced the receiver and returned. "Elder Brother, Qing Guan claims he has found one of the fugitives!"

Lan Ying Si sprang to his feet. "Where is he?"

"Ah..." Lan Yi Fei paused. "A holding cell at the Lewisham Police Station."

"What? What has he done?"

"He was walking down the street with his sword in broad daylight."

Lan Ying Si appeared to be struck dumb for a moment. Kingsley interjected smoothly, "It should be a simple matter to extract him."

The elder Cultivator considered for a moment and bowed. "We are most grateful. Let us leave together. We have no need to return to this place."

"We can Apparate from here," Dora offered. Both Cultivators looked blank, and she amended, "Wizarding travel method."

"Ah! Yes, that would indeed suit." 

They all stood around looking at each other for a moment. "Do you have any luggage you want to bring?" Dora prompted.

"We carry all we require on our persons," Lan Yi Fei answered gravely.

Wow, and she thought she traveled light. Kingsley approached him and said, "Beg pardon." He put his hand on Lan Yi Fei's shoulder; with a pop they were gone.

Lan Ying Si stood looking straight ahead with his sword held tightly in his left hand and his right hand clenched behind his back, his entire bearing one of bowstring tension. Dora understood why Kingsley had felt the need to apologize; it felt like she was about to slap a handful of mud onto a marble statue. "Sorry," she said quickly, gripping his shoulder (firm but pliant muscle, warm, not a statue after all) and pulled them both through the pipe-thread corridor of Apparition.

Both Cultivators staggered and looked decidedly green on the other side, to the point where Dora wondered if she ought to conjure basins for them. As they wobbled around, breathing deeply, Dora murmured to Kingsley, "Does their sect accept foreigners?"

Kingsley replied, amused, "They do, but you wouldn't like it there."

"Why not? Their tea is top notch! And I wouldn't mind a fancy title like 'Master Brilliant Sorceress.' I could get used to those robes, too..." Plus, maybe some of their grace (present moment excluded) would rub off on her.

"For one, they're exceedingly patriarchal. The sect has produced only one female Head in the centuries of its existence. For another, it is very difficult for outsiders to rise to the top ranks based on merit alone. See those ribbons they wear on their heads? They can be worn only by those in the inner circle—and that's determined by familial lines alone. Not to mention, their disciples must memorize and obey over four thousand rules. Including 'no alcohol on sect grounds.'"

"Okay, forget it. You would've convinced me with just that last bit."

After a couple of minutes, the Cultivators were sufficiently recovered to approach the large police station of red brick and glass. A judiciously applied Confundus Charm was enough to have the officer on duty muttering "Nutty Asians" and Lan Qing Guan brought up and released along with his sword. They walked out of the police station together, the officer's bemused gaze following them all the way outside.

Dora introduced herself this time, since Kingsley was Disillusioned. Lan Qing Guan, clearly the youngest of the three, thanked her profusely before turning to the other Lan: "Brothers, I have found the fugitive!" 

The announcement was met with astonished joy. The fugitive, it transpired, had changed her name to Chang Xing Mei, and Lan Qing Guan had been trailing her when he'd been nicked by the Metropolitan Police. 

Lan Ying Si bowed unerringly at the invisible Kingsley. "Master Shacklebolt, forgive our presumption, but now that our quarry is in sight, I beg that you will allow us the time to complete our mission. We have pledged our lives to this task, and it would bring eternal shame upon us to return home empty-handed."

Kingsley hesitated. "I am afraid I must return to the Ministry. But Tonks can accompany you with the Portkey, if she is willing."

"Be happy to!" Dora agreed cheerfully.

Kingsley handed the Portkey to her. The three Cultivators bowed to him, and he Apparated away.

"Where to?" Dora asked after they had taken a moment to confer and cast some sort of Disillusionment over their swords.

Lan Ying Si uttered hastily, eyeing the wand in her hand, "It is not far. Let us walk."

Dora shrugged and Disillusioned herself as well, for the three exotically-dressed Cultivators were attracting plenty of attention. She wondered if they were covered by the Statute of Secrecy. Maybe they didn't stand out as much in their own country? 

Dora was beginning to wonder how relative "not far" was going to be when Lan Qing Guan stopped in front of a tall concrete building not so different from the one they had left. The three Cultivators went in without hesitation. Dora followed with somewhat less enthusiasm, but the inside was clean and smelled of nothing worse than Muggle cleaning products. The three men eyed the lift with suspicion before turning as one to the stairs.

Well, she should be glad of the exercise, at least. 

They stepped out into the third floor corridor, and Lan Qing Guan knocked on a door at the end. He put his ear to the door, then knocked again. Silence. The Cultivators looked at each other and nodded.

"Woah, wait!" Dora dismissed her Disillusionment and stepped forward as Lan Qing Guan raised his foot. "Can we leave destruction of property as a last resort?" She pointed her wand at the lock. " _Alohomora_." The door cracked open.

The sitting room within was beautifully decorated in the Chinese style, with matching rosewood furniture that gave the space an elegant but not overcrowded feel. Scrolls hung on the walls, all of them depicting mountain scenes: mist drifting through a verdant forest; huge lichen-covered rocks framing a white-frothed waterfall; sunlight filtering through bamboo as far as the eye could see.

Lan Ying Si gasped. A woman was seated in lotus position on a huge carved armchair. Her thin hair was pure white and cut shorter than Dora's. Her brow was deeply etched with wrinkles, as were the corners of her eyes and mouth. She wore no makeup, and both age-spots and freckles dotted her golden-brown skin. Dora judged her age to be eighty or so, but her dark-brown eyes, when she opened them, were still bright.

"It appears Lan Sect has been remiss in teaching manners to the new generation. In my day, no one would be so rude as to barge into a home without invitation," the old woman remarked dryly in Chinese.

Thus upbraided by an elder, Lan Ying Si looked like he couldn't quite decide whether to apologize or shift to the offense.

Lan Yi Fei, it seemed, had no such qualms. "How dare you preach morals to us when you're the one who brought such shame upon our sect! Chang Xing Mei! Admit your wrongdoing and submit to your punishment!"

"Hey, can we all calm down and talk to each other like adults?" Dora stepped in. To Chang, she said, "We're really sorry about barging in here, but our time is kinda limited. These gentlemen came a long way; would you mind answering a few questions for them?"

She eyed Dora. Then she smiled and said in perfect English, "I do mind, actually. If you do not have a warrant, then I must ask you to leave." Back to Chinese, to the Cultivators: "That means 'piss off.'"

Lan Yi Fei's face was rapidly turning red. Dora hide a grin: she hoped she could be this spunky when she was eighty! She acknowledged: "What she said is true. We're the ones who have no right to be here."

There was a rasp of steel. "This is my warrant!" Lan Yi Fei exclaimed. A moment later both Lan Ying Si and Lan Qing Guan had drawn their own swords.

 _Oh shit!_ Dora's _impedimenta_ barely slowed their charge. "Stop!"

Chang had risen with a sword in her hand; as Dora watched in amazement, she leapt lightly over the flashing thrusts of the three men to land behind them, then blocked them with her upraised blade. Lan Qing Guan jumped back and tried to circle around her; he somehow sensed Dora's _immobulus_ , whirled, and brought his sword before him in a warding gesture. Her spell splashed harmlessly against a blue-tinged shield.

"Lady Tonks! Please stay out of this!"

"Not on your life!" Her _expelliarmus_ seemed to have no effect at all. "Put down your weapon!"

"I'm sorry, I cannot." He leaned backwards impossibly far to dodge her _confringo_ , then back-flipped over her _expulso._ He danced around her as if he were partly shaped from mist; none of her spells touched him at all.

His sword flashed down at her, whistling through the air. It sliced through her shield as if it didn't exist, and she jumped backwards to avoid it. Suddenly she was on the defensive, being driven step by step out of the sitting room into the long corridor. She ducked into a bedroom off to the side, transformed, and rolled past him. She sprang up behind him and said in her sternest voice (she'd been practicing): "Qing Guan, stop!" His mouth dropped open, and he froze. Before he could recover, she poked her wand through his guard to touch his chest and stunned him point-blank.

She resumed her own form and spun to see Chang being driven into the kitchen. She had lost her sword, and was now dodging and weaving to avoid the flashing points of death coming at her from two different directions. Dora felt the anger mount in her. A blast of explosive heat drove both men back a few steps, giving them some much-needed respite. Chang picked up a battered old frying pan off the stove and winked. Dora laughed, suddenly realizing that this had been her plan all along. She eyed a bunch of ripe yellow bananas hanging on a stand. As the two Cultivators renewed their attack, she threw the lot down behind them, then levitated all the knives out of the knife drawer. Chang engaged Lan Yi Fei with the frying pan, while Dora dueled Lan Ying Si with a cloud of kitchen knives. 

The conclusion was foregone. Swords were never meant to be used in such a cramped space, and the Cultivators would surely have realized that if they'd been in a calmer state of mind. Lan Ying Si's got stuck in the thick stump-like knife block Dora was using as a shield, and she petrified him before he could extract it. Chang struck Lan Yi Fei a glancing blow to the shoulder as he was trying to pull his weapon out from the thin space between the range and the counter, and he stepped backwards onto a banana and went flying. Dora stunned him in mid-air, and he landed with a limp _thump_.

Dora and Chang Xing Mei looked at each other. Chang held up her fist, precisely like a boy in a Muggle movie Dora had once seen with Remus. She laughed at Dora's expression. "I have great-grandchildren!" she explained in English. Dora grinned and bumped it gently with hers.

"Sorry about this," she apologized contritely. "I didn't know they were going to jump right into waving their swords around. I'll fix everything, don't worry. I'm Nymphadora Tonks, by the way."

"Chang Xing Mei, once known as Lan Xu Liu, but that was a very long time ago. My husband and I always knew this day would come. The Lan Sect does not take besmirchings of its illustrious name lightly." This last was spoken in a tone of heavy irony as she and Dora went out of the kitchen, Lan Ying Si and Lan Yi Fei floating behind them along with their swords. Chang pointed. "Put them there."

Dora set the two Cultivators down gently in the middle of the sitting room and brought Lan Qing Guan in from the bedroom. They both looked at the white-robed men, who had somehow lost none of their grace even slumped over in defeat. Chang raised her eyes to a scroll depicting a faraway bright scarlet pavilion set halfway up a tall cloud-wreathed mountain and sighed. "I suppose I should give them something to take back; the sect doesn't take failure lightly. Would you wake them, please?" 

Dora hadn't been quite sure Kingsley was serious about the four thousand rules, but it was beginning to sound like the sect didn't take anything lightly. Dora bound the Cultivators with _incarcerous_ before rennervating and unpetrifying them.

Lan Yi Fei began to struggle as soon as he regained consciousness. "How dare you treat us with such discourtesy!" he cried. "Release us at once!"

Dora, who was walking around the room repairing the damage caused by the fight, rolled her eyes. Chang resumed her seat on the armchair and stated calmly, "I will tell you my tale, which you may take back to your elders, but I will not be going with you. Will you listen, or will you leave now?"

"I will not listen to your lies, evil witch!" Lan Yi Fei declared.

"Hey, I'm the witch here!" Dora snapped, and re-stunned him.

"Lady Tonks!" Lan Qing Guan gasped.

"Also not a lady!" Dora glared, and he shrank back and nodded meekly.

"Forgive Brother Yi Fei's rudeness," Lan Ying Si said courteously, posture as straight as his sword. "Please speak. We will listen."

Chang looked at him consideringly and began: "My husband Chang San Lang and I left Lan Sect in the year 1935, though we were not married then." At the Lan disciples' discomfort, she added, "That is story which I will not go into now. When we arrived here, we knew no one, and spent many days seeking work to no avail. By chance we rendered aid to an old professor of German walking home from the market one day against a gang of ruffians intent on robbing him. He had a set of spare rooms which he graciously offered to us, so that at least we had a roof over our heads.

San Lang and I both eventually found work—he as apprentice to a master carpenter, and I as a seamstress. As we got along well with the professor and his family, we came to an agreement to rent the rooms from him. The fact of the matter was, someone had been murdered in those rooms many years before, and his ghost continued to haunt one of the bedrooms. He was malicious, but had no great spiritual power, so none of the previous tenants had been truly harmed. However, he did do everything in his power to annoy whoever stepped into what he considered his domain: doors and windows opening and banging shut late at night, bathwater suddenly turned ice-cold, a shadow moving constantly at the corner of your eyes. Silly tricks, but effective for chasing people away.

It was no great matter for my husband and I to exorcise him. The professor was very grateful, and thereupon our two family lived alongside each other in peace and harmony. Our son was born a few years later. 

Then came the War."

Chang paused, and a heaviness settled over her like a lead-lined cloak. "The times were hard for everyone, but especially so for the professor, who was constantly under suspicion of spying for the enemy. Finally, one day, government people came to take him and his family away."

She paused again and stared into the distance. The Cultivators were transfixed. Dora stopped casting repair spells and sat down to listen. "There was nothing we could do. We had no useful connections, and as foreigners ourselves could not speak for them. We didn't even know where they were taken. A few years later the professor returned with his daughter. He told us they were the only two left; he had lost his wife, son, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, and grandson. Afterwards his daughter drifted through the house as if she were a ghost herself. She never smiled again.

The professor vowed revenge, but he had been a meek soul and a scholar all his life. He had no weapons nor any clue how to obtain them. But he had an idea...

He had always been interested in our story, so we had told him bits and pieces of our background over the years." At Lan Ying Si's look she clarified, "Not the Secrets, but the Histories: the Night Hunts, the great battles against those who pervert the Way for their own gain, the joint exorcisms of vengeful spirits bloated with the power of their own rage and pain. So, lacking a weapon himself, he asked us to make him into one."

Both Cultivators inhaled sharply. "It is the most heinous of crimes..." Lan Qing Guan whispered.

"Yes. We traveled by boat to the Isle of Man at night. We drew the ritual circle and inscribed it with seals to limit the spirit's domain and protect those with no blood on their hands. We begged him to return with us. He told us to leave. We waited at the boat for him past dawn, until we could wait no longer. We returned home, but could not stay there. The professor had found some old friends to look after his daughter, so we said good-bye to her and left with our son. That was the last time we saw either of them."

Lan Ying Si asked, "Did you not go back to exorcise the professor's spirit?"

"It took some time before we were settled again, but afterwards we did go back to the island," Chang answered. "The old camp had been abandoned. We found traces of ghost activity, but of the professor himself there was no sign."

"Impossible!" Lan Qing Guan exclaimed. "It is said he killed two people a night for three nights running. A vengeful spirit with that much power would not have simply faded away."

"True. My husband searched for him for many years, and I took up the search after his death. But that is also another story which I will not go into at this time."

"Lady Chang!" Lan Ying Si protested.

"Let us help you!" Lan Qing Guan begged.

Chang looked at them both and smiled faintly. "Suffice to say I will wash my sins clean with my own hands. I have sworn it. This world is not yours. I believe it is time you went home." She looked at Dora, who dug the Portkey out of her pocket. 

Dora cast a _tempus_ and filled in the time. "Two minutes," she said.

"Lady..." Lan Ying Si coughed, and amended, "Tonks, please free us. You have our word we will behave ourselves and leave quietly when our time is up."

Dora glanced at Chang, who nodded slightly. She removed the binding spell.

Lan Ying Si and Lan Qing Guan both picked up their swords and stood. Side by side, they clasped their hands in front of them and bowed with utmost grace. "Lady Chang, we take our leave." She nodded back at them, and they turned to Dora, bowing once more. "Thank you for your aid."

Then they picked Lan Yi Fei and his sword up from the ground, took the Portkey firmly in their hands, and whirled away.

Dora looked at Chang's serene countenance. "I missed something back there, didn't I?"

She smiled. "We each have our own battles to fight. May you protect all that you hold dear and emerge victorious from yours, my dear."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you got the reference, I toast you with a cupful of Emperor's Smile, fellow traveler to a far-away fandom! ♥ If not, no worries. Everything plot-related has been stated; I was just having a little fun with the rest.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please jump to the end notes to see specific warning tags for this chapter.

The pop of Apparition from the Headmaster's cloakroom was so faint that Severus would certainly have missed it completely if he had not been listening for it with an intentness he could not quite deny from himself. 

These three months after Albus Dumbledore's death had proceeded almost exactly as the calculating old wizard had predicted. Severus had shot up through the ranks of the Dark Lord's inner circle, and was now trusted as far as he could trust anyone. Only Bellatrix still regarded him with suspicion, and even she no longer dared voice her doubts out loud.

The first signs of both his masters' plans going awry was Yaxley bringing rumors of a secret unscheduled meeting between the Minister for Magic and someone of such importance that he had canceled all his meetings for his entire afternoon, including one with the heads of the departments of the DMLE. Even Yaxley's army of spies had not been able to ascertain the identity of this person or the nature of the meeting. 

Soon after that the Ministry gained the uncanny ability to predict which Muggle sites would be targeted by Death Eaters. Several of the Dark Lord's agents operating within the Ministry were caught and sentenced to Azkaban. Yaxley himself was placed under surveillance, curtailing his activities so significantly he was tortured twice for bringing no useful information to meetings with the Dark Lord.

In retaliation, Voldemort murdered Hestia Jones and ordered his followers to seek out and kill members of the Order of the Phoenix. Mundungus Fletcher died the next day, taking with him Severus' plan for extracting Potter from his aunt and uncle's house. He spent several sleepless nights devising an alternative, which at various points featured poison, kidnapping, use of mind-altering substances, and/or the Imperius Curse.

Then Potter, as ever the avatar of Chaos Incarnate, disappeared.

The Dark Lord had been livid. But no amount of torture could extract the boy's whereabouts out of anyone, and soon his attention was occupied elsewhere. For the Ministry was slipping out of his grasp: a thorough reorganization had weeded out almost all of Voldemort's influence among the Aurors, and there were rumors that Yaxley would soon be arrested. When word reached him of Scrimgeour's visit to the Burrow, therefore, he decided to commit almost his entire strength to the Minister's capture and the overtaking of the Ministry.

The Ministry fell. Even so, Scrimgeour himself eluded capture with a finality that disturbed even the Dark Lord, and his Emergency Broadcast undermined Voldemort's fledgling rule still further. Immediately following that came another disaster: the mass breakout of forty-three witches and wizards from the DMLE on the very day the Ministry was taken. 

It was now clear that another player had taken Albus Dumbledore's seat at the chessboard, and Severus couldn't help but wonder who. Had Dumbledore trusted someone enough to hand them all the threads he had clutched so tightly in his grasp? Moody? Shacklebolt? Potter himself? Surely not. Scrimgeour had named Potter Dumbledore's protégé; if Dumbledore had indeed raised him up to be more than figurehead, if he had set Potter on the path to orchestrating his own destruction— 

Severus was unsure by this point which of his masters was the more monstrous. 

_The boy must die._

There were times when Severus badly regretted the impulse that had made him toss out all the liquor out of Spinner's End after his father's death. It had made a lovely and vicious bonfire, but more and more often he longed for the degradation and wreckage of that vile oblivion. Well, there were some things the Owl Post was still good for. And if it made him as much a hypocrite as his father, at least it had the poetry of long history and illustrious companions to its advantage. Some days it was that or opening his veins with his paring knife.

With August came various sightings of Potter along with rumors that he was working with the Order to evacuate Muggle-borns. Severus had to resort to dosing himself with Calming Draughts so he wouldn't grind his teeth to dust in his sleep. What was Moody doing, bringing a disaster-magnet like Potter on rescue missions? Was everybody trying to get the boy killed? He fantasized about sending the old ex-Auror a toxin which would cause him to eject any food he ate violently from both ends for a period of seventy-two hours. Mentally listing the ingredients and steps for brewing it was the only thing that allowed him to fall asleep at night. Getting him to drink it would be another matter, of course. The planning for that occupied successions of insomniac hours.

And so on to the First of September.

The first change he instituted as Headmaster of Hogwarts was to cancel all standing meetings. They were a waste of time and he had told Dumbledore as much. Repeatedly. Dumbledore, he suspected, had enjoyed the byplay between his staff and used it as an opportunity to exercise those subtle manipulations of which he was so fond. Severus had no more use for subtlety, and he no longer had the patience for games. Dumbledore himself had seen to that.

His directives, therefore, were delivered straight to his professors' desks. His beginning-of-the-year speech was just as bald, concise, and to the point: anyone who stepped out of line, including the teachers, would answer to the Carrows. Anyone who courted his displeasure did so at their peril.

If wish magic were real he was sure the collective glare from the Gryffindor table would have caused him to spontaneously combust right there in front of the entire school. Alas, deprived of leadership and initiative, their righteous indignation only served as a source of amusement to the Slytherins, who, though subdued and respectful in deference to Draco's loss, radiated smugness like sharks at the scent of blood in the water. 

And they would have their blood—the Carrows would see to that. _I am not such a coward,_ he'd once said to Dumbledore, and this was the reward for his foolishness and pride: forced to stand guard over the cruelties that children inflicted on each other, watching as they strangled the still-tentative sparks of their own unique personalities in the name of illusionary power.

He ate nothing. The elf-made wine tasted of rage on his tongue and heaved like despair in his stomach.

And then there was Potter. Potter with his wild tale and impossible knowledge and Potteresque levels of _deus ex machina_. By the next morning he had mostly convinced himself that it had all been a waking dream: certainly a far more plausible explanation given the regularity with which Potter did, in fact, appear in his dreams. An unconscious desire to not only avoid the necessity of telling Potter of his required sacrifice, but to have a Potter who accepted that fact and forgave him for it? The dynamics of "eating his cake and having it too"—or the psychological equivalent thereof—couldn't be clearer. 

Severus hated cake.

So tonight he had waited, gaze drawn again and again to the ghostly imprints left on the corner of his desk: the whorls and ridges of the press of four fingers and the tip of one thumb, enough for Muggle science to uniquely identify a person. Not evidence enough in the Wizarding world, though, not by a long shot.

There was perfect silence from the cloakroom. Was Potter waiting for an invitation, or was Severus hallucinating after all?

"Enter," he called brusquely, and Potter's dark tousled head poked out of the small space with a grin, the rest of him following with what looked like a large piece of parchment in his hands. 

Severus had to look away for a moment. It was like staring into the sun after emerging from a dark cave: almost a physical blow. Even without wine his mind felt jumbled, distractingly off-kilter.

"Good evening, Headmaster," Potter greeted him with a cheer he could not explain: nobody in this bloody castle wanted him here; not the teachers, not the students, not the Ministry-appointed "liaisons", and certainly not himself. Of course Potter always had to be the exception, didn't he?

Potter came up to his desk and placed the parchment in front of him, turning it around so it faced him the right side up. "You've seen this before, I think? It's called the Marauder's Map," he explained. "My dad made it with his friends."

His memory jolted and sharpened on sudden revulsion. His eyes automatically flew to the tiny dot labeled "Harry Potter" standing in the Headmaster's Office, very near the dot labeled with his own name. He felt himself pale.

Potter was watching him carefully. "I know," he said gravely. "I can't afford to have it fall into the wrong hands. That's why I'm giving it to you. You can destroy, if you want. Or use it."

Curiosity fought a brief war with loathing and won. "How does it work?" he asked.

"The Marauders drew this map using all their knowledge of Hogwarts' hidden places and secret passages, which was considerable. I think they linked it to the remnants of an old Mage's Web. So it knows where everyone is, but only on school grounds. You wipe it by tapping it with your wand and saying 'Mischief managed.'"

Potter demonstrated, and the map went blank.

Severus leaned back and scowled. "I very much doubt it will work for me."

"Well, not if you command it to reveal its secrets as Headmaster Severus Snape," Potter pointed out lightly, a corner of his lips turning up. "Try 'I solemnly swear I am up to no good.'" At Severus' glare he raised his hands palm-up in a placating gesture. "I wasn't the one who chose the password. Besides, you are up to no good, aren't you, when it comes to the Carrows?"

Severus narrowed his eyes but tapped his wand to the parchment and bit out, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

Lines scurried in panicked confusion across the page. He saw one flash by that might have read, "We always knew you were up to no good, you slimy git." It was followed by, "Oh, FINE, but whoever leaked the password is getting cursed." And the map revealed itself once more.

Severus raised an eyebrow at Potter. "Hey, whatever works," he shrugged.

"Indeed." He watched Filch prowl the third-floor corridor with Mrs. Norris at his side. The Carrows were moving slowly down the sixth, probably checking behind every curtain. Thankfully both corridors were empty of students. Objectively speaking, it was an impressive feat of magic. And useful, certainly. If only... 

"...there was a way to make sure you were the only one who could use it?" Potter finished his thought, and he was startled to realize that he had spoken out loud. "You'd want to make sure nobody could read it even if you left it out accidentally... Some sort of overlay spell, maybe?"

Severus considered. The idea had merit. "I will think on it." He stood. "Shall we get on with the task at hand?"

"You're coming with me, then?"

"Did you really think I would leave you to wander around the school alone getting into Merlin knows what sorts of trouble?"

"Knowing me, only the best kind," Potter quipped, that grin like distilled sunlight making a startling reappearance.

Severus turned away, unsettled. He'd perfected the art of getting a rise out of James Potter's troublesome progeny with the tilt of an eyebrow, the precisely calibrated tone of his voice. The man in front of him had somehow turned into a stranger: unpredictable—and therefore dangerous. Severus wiped the Map and folded it away into his pocket before looking back up at Potter.

"All right. Our first stop will be the Room of Requirement on the Seventh Floor. Shall we?"

Severus nodded. Potter drew out a length of shimmering fabric from the small pouch at his waist, wrapped it around himself, and disappeared. 

Potter was silent as a ghost walking next to Severus, but he had never felt so physically aware of another person. His mind continued to grapple with the sheer impossibility of Potter's presence while his body confused itself with the contradiction of its senses: a distortion of air left in the wake of Potter's passage out of the corner of his eyes; a faint inconstant heat brushing past the back of his hand; a whisper of movement stirring minutely against his hair; the hint of cedar from Potter's clothes, overwhelmed for long stretches by cooling stone and the turpentine of portraits. Severus' magic, meanwhile, was centered and sure, the steadiest part of him, but it only served to disorient him further. It told him that this young wizard's magic, which had felt impetuous and treacherous just a few short months ago, like a tall, thin spire built over a fault line, had now grown into a great weathered tree with roots deep as the earth, crowned with sunlight and wreathed with wind...

In short, this incarnation of the bane of his existence was even more infuriating and impossible than he'd been when he'd tried to use Severus' own spells against him.

Lost in his ruminations, it took a gentle touch to his shoulder for him to realize that he was standing opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. "Let me," Potter whispered. A moment later the door to the Room of Hidden Things appeared, and they stepped inside.

Potter's head emerged from his Cloak as soon as the door closed behind him, and he quickly shook off the rest as if he knew how disturbing it looked to have his decapitated head floating around in midair. "I think I remember where it is," he said, with an expression that Severus couldn't quite name, a sort of nervous, quiet tension that was partly resolve and partly something else entirely.

He led the way through the maze of discarded and forgotten objects, Severus following more slowly behind. For the first time he consciously registered Potter's Auror-style robes, the slight flare of it behind him as he walked, the ease and confidence with which he wore it, so perfectly harmonized with the aura of power that surrounded him. This was the man Dumbledore had murdered with his demand for Potter's sacrifice, the man Severus had thought he would never have the chance to see. He'd known—even in the moment he'd known (though he'd told himself otherwise)—that his feelings of rage and grief, the urge to strike the old wizard down where he stood, were too sharp and too overpowering to have been for the memory of a woman fifteen years dead, however beloved. Only now did he realize that those feelings were his repudiation of the loss of all that Potter would become as a man.

In an instant the whole of Potter coalesced in front of him: the man capable of speaking the words from last night; the man who had already lived a lifetime and accepted his death, who had forgiven Severus for his part in it; the wizard wielding a magic equal to his own; the seventeen-year-old vessel of two universes crashing together with the intent of altering an entire timeline. Severus stopped, a sudden dizziness overcoming him, a feeling of reality realigning right before his eyes. He steadied himself against a tall bookshelf tottering with haphazardly-piled books just as Potter said softly, "I have a confession to make." He was standing with his back towards Severus. He continued after a moment, as if he had heard Severus' thought: _I don't know how many more confessions I can take._ "Yes, I know, another one. Not as bad as last night's though, I promise." He turned and Severus instantly recognized the book he held in his hand, cradled as if its cracked spine and tattered cover were something deserving of the utmost care. "You probably knew I had this all along. I'm not sure why you didn't force me to return it, but I'm glad you didn't... Um, here." 

Severus made no move to take the book. "Let it stay," he said. "I have no use for it now."

"Oh." Potter clutched it to his chest in a oddly possessive gesture. "I'd like to take it with me, then, if I may?"

He nodded. Before last night he might have made a snide remark about reliving past glories, but it seemed meaningless now, and more petty than he could bear. The truth was, he didn't know why Potter wanted the book (surely useless to him now) nor why he wanted Potter to have it. Snideness was his instinctive reaction to that uncomfortable uncertainty. It was an old pattern, laid down before he'd even obtained his wand; only the equally instinctive aversion to it was new.

Potter tucked the book away quickly into his mokeskin pouch as if he thought Severus might change his mind. He exhaled. "All right. We'll have to get Ravenclaw's diadem down to the second floor girls' lavatory and from there into the Chamber of Secrets." A filigree weave of silver strands set with a great oval sapphire rose silently from the bust of a warlock's head as he spoke. Looking at his face, Potter murmured, "You feel it too, don't you?"

He had never known such immediate revulsion towards an inanimate object before. He strengthened his Occlumency shields, but it made no difference. "I trust you don't plan to carry that thing down to the second floor?"

"No. Not like this, anyway." Potter drew something out of his pocket and held it up to Severus' view. It was a small sphere of greenish-gray metal with a thin line bifurcating it into two hemispheres. "I don't know where Mundungus Fletcher got this thing, but he was using it to store Slytherin's locket." He twisted it apart to reveal the glimmering interior. "It's lined with silver imbued with a permanent shrinking charm." He dropped the tiara into it, where it shrunk to the size of a ring. He twisted the two halves of the hemisphere together, and Severus immediately felt the malignant presence disappear.

Magic-nullification metal, Severus realized. It might have been the most valuable object in Mundungus' collection, though even he had probably deemed finding a buyer for it too risky. 

Severus led the way down, the castle silent until they reached the third-floor corridor, where they paused at the sound of voices. "I can't believe you broke curfew on our second day, Cho," said Cedric Diggory, the ever-present whine in his delivery setting Severus' teeth on edge. "You're not a student anymore, you're here representing the Ministry. You have to set a good example."

"I'm really sorry, Cedric. I wanted to meet the new First Years, and then we all started catching up, and I lost track of time."

"See, this is why I told you you shouldn't go. You keep asking me to trust you, but this is what happens when I do. And you forgot to check in with me, too. You know I get worried about you."

He could feel Potter's tension beside him.

"I know. I'm really, really sorry I made you worry. I promised I'll remember next time. Let's go back to our rooms, okay?"

"You're the only one I can trust, Cho. That's why when you do stuff like this it just hurts me so much."

"Please don't be angry, Cedric. I'll—"

Severus stepped smoothly around the corner and leveled an icy glare on the couple. "Is there a problem, Mr. Diggory?"

Diggory, who'd been slouching against a wall, face turned forlornly away from Chang while she pleaded with him, straightened and looked Severus in the eye, stepping forward so that Chang was behind him. "No problem, sir."

"Remind me, Mr. Diggory: did I forget to mention last night that curfew applies to _everyone_ who does not have special exemption from me?" he said in his coldest voice.

"No sir. I'm sorry, sir, it won't happen again," Diggory responded, taking Chang by the wrist.

"See that it doesn't. Miss Chang, you will come to the Headmaster's Office tomorrow morning at nine A.M."

"Yes sir," Chang replied in a small voice.

"Sir, may I—" Diggory interjected.

"You may not." Diggory shrank back from his look. "I suggest you return to your rooms directly." They obeyed, Diggory dragging Chang after him, his fingers white against her skin.

He and Potter arrived at the girls' lavatory without further interruption. The ghost of Myrtle Warren was absent, and Severus warded the room so that neither she nor anyone else could interrupt them at an inopportune moment. He felt a flare of repugnance and heard a hiss from the empty air. The sink at the center of the room sank into the floor, exposing a large pipe leading down into the hidden depths of the castle.

"Sorry about this," Potter murmured, before a whisper of displaced air announced his descent. Severus shielded himself and followed, mentally cataloging the twists and turns of the pipe with interest. He estimated himself to be somewhere near the level of the lake-bed half a mile inland before he saw the glow of Potter's wandlight announcing the end of their precipitous descent. He managed to get his feet under him as the pipe spat him out into a rough stone tunnel carpeted with the bones of small creatures.

"Nice landing," Potter, visible again, grinned. "You should've seen Lockhart in my Second Year—he came down arse-first and managed to fall flat on his face."

"And yet, still not the worst Defense teacher you've had in your time," Severus snorted.

"Hah. Not by a long shot. At least he wasn't actively trying to kill me. Plus we had the Dueling Club. I learned _expelliarmus_ from you, you know, that time you pummeled him."

Potter's shy smile threatened his equilibrium. Severus swallowed against a sudden obstruction in his throat and managed dryly, "A fond memory, I assure you."

They soon came upon a part of the tunnel where the ceiling had collapsed. Severus drew his wand, and they worked in tandem to shore up the structure around them and move enough debris aside for them both to pass. The air immediately grew murkier and rank with decay. Severus threw up a bubble of clean air around them both. He acknowledged Potter's thanks with a nod.

Huge floor-to-ceiling doors of stone carved in the shape of serpents stood open at the end of the tunnel, but Severus had no time to admire their craftsmanship because beyond them lay the dimly lit Chamber of Secrets itself—along with the Basilisk felled and still rotting away at the foot of enormous stone columns stretching up into darkness. It was massive even in death, wide as he was tall and the length of the Great Hall. The bodies of rats and insects lay in a gradient ring-shaped mass around the carcass, testifying to its persistent lethality. 

"You killed that creature in your Second Year?" Severus had to consciously prevent his voice from going up a register, confronted yet again with evidence of how badly the school had failed Potter. When Dumbledore had told the teachers of Potter's fight, somehow he'd imagined a serpent the size of a overfed python, not this monster from the pages of a dark wizard's demon-summoning grimoire.

"Only with help," Potter responded with tooth-rotting modesty, following the curving mass toward the head. "I would've died if Fawkes hadn't been there."

Severus clenched his fists around the urge to slap Potter silly, misplaced anger being almost literally his middle name.

"Here we are," Potter stopped and moved his glowing wand over something on the ground: a long broken-off Basilisk fang lying beside an inky discoloration on the floor.

Severus looked back at the Basilisk's head as Potter reached into his pocket for the magic-nullification sphere. It was the most intact part of the creature, lying on its side with maw open wide, clearly displaying more curved, deadly fangs. Salazar Slytherin, the founder of his House, had concealed this monster in a school with the intention of using it to hunt down children.

This time he couldn't distinguish the surge of revulsion that welled from inside him at that thought from his reaction to the diadem rising out of its containment. When Potter offered him the Basilisk fang, he didn't hesitate: he plunged its envenomed tip right into the heart of the glimmering sapphire. The stone shattered; there was a long, thin wail abruptly broken off as dark smoke poured out of the pieces and dissipated into the air.

Potter gave a long sigh, one hand rubbing his scar. "Well, that's four. Three more and a Dark Lord to go." 

_Three more._ He barely stopped himself from hurling the fang into the darkness.

"What is it?" The look that Potter cast on him was startled, and then not. "Snape...?"

"You will simply go along with Dumbledore's Great Plan, then, and submit yourself to this death sentence?"

Potter stilled, green eyes searching his face for— Severus knew not what. "That was the deal, yeah."

"A deal made with this shape-shifting Death who might have existed only in your own mind."

"Just because it was all in my head doesn't mean it wasn't real," Potter quipped.

"According to your own account Death said only that your death formed a gateway across timelines; he said nothing about requiring its permanence."

"Please don't," Potter looked away, a hand running through his hair in a habitual gesture. "I don't think I'm up to this right now."

"Yet you joke about your demise as if it were thing to be laughed at," Severus snarled.

"What else am I supposed to do? I came back from Lord Thingy killing me once, sure, but it was also the 'permanence' of my death that brought me to this timeline. That was the link."

"You are supposed to _fight_ , Potter. Fight Dumbledore's machinations, fight your destiny, fight Death itself if you must. I will not countenance this cringing acceptance from you. You were not half so craven when you were cursing me with my own spells."

Instead of galvanizing Potter, his words had the unnerving effect of drawing Potter to him, so close that his nose twitched at the faint, already familiar scent of him, the sense of limitless, light-filled space in this claustrophobic darkness. Potter peered up into his eyes, his own huge and dilated in the dimness. Then he ducked his head and pressed it lightly against Severus' shoulder. "Thank you," he sighed. "Thank you for all of it. I'm sorry I can't give you the answer you're looking for."

They stood frozen in that strange tableau, Severus staring unseeing back through the dark tunnels, afraid to stir lest he jostle free the foreign heat snaking through him like the first tendrils of Spring through frozen earth. He didn't know how long they stood there together, how long he remained deaf, blind, and dumb, how long it was before Potter slowly pulled back to say, "I'm sorry. I've taken up enough of your time for one night. Can I come back for the Elder Wand tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," Severus echoed, because he could not say, "Stay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Emotional/Psychological Abuse
> 



	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: we're using British floor numbering: ground floor, first floor, second floor, etc. I know, I keep having to remind myself too.
> 
> Going forward I'll be updating weekly instead of bi-weekly (mostly). I can't actually write/edit 7000+ words a week, heh. (Sorry!)
> 
> Please jump to the end notes to see specific warning tags for this chapter.

Harry woke the next morning swamped with an odd lethargy, Snape's emphatic _You are supposed to fight_ still echoing in his ears. It was impossible to explain to someone who operated according to an assumption of logic that he knew his time here was bound by the precise moment of his original death in this timeline. That was his bargain with Death, and he wasn't sure if it had even been put into words. An argument of "I just know" was, to someone like Snape, no argument at all. Maybe he shouldn't even have tried.

Yet, though he knew that word-lawyering would not change anything, the certainty with which he had sailed through the past few weeks had all but vanished. Trust Snape to be the oncoming storm ripping his smoothly charted course to pieces.

Life was contradictory like that, wasn't it, the way it slipped so irrevocably through your fingers when you most wanted its precious seconds to lengthen into eternity?

_I want to live. I want to live. I want to LIVE._

He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

_Ah, fuck. This is hard. This is really fucking hard, dammit._

He covered his face as his breath hitched and shuddered into sobs. He let the grief sweep through him like a tidal wave, allowing himself to feel the weight and the pain of it. Allowing himself to acknowledge how much he loved being here, in this gloomy old house given new purpose, among people he was proud to call his friends; how happy he was to be able to stand on equal ground with Snape at last, both of them tentative and a little lost, but building bridges now, instead of tearing them down from both ends. As the tears ebbed, he breathed deeply and imagined the tide coming back, this time bringing gratitude with it instead of sorrow. _I am thankful for the time I've been given. Let me be thankful for even this anguish, which tells me how precious I hold my life, and theirs._

Afterwards he went through his morning ablutions and joined the Order in the drawing room. Another evacuation was planned for the day, though this time he, Hermione, and Percy would be staying behind. The ranks of Harper's former DMLE had swelled with Muggle-borns who had elected to stay behind along with their loved ones, and in large-scale operations like these the Order was mostly relegated to coordination. Hermione and Percy would be managing communications with a trial version of a modified Protean spell they had created. Only short, terse phrases could be transmitted, but it was two-way and secure, which made it a vast improvement over the makeshift methods they'd utilized before.

Once Moody, Tonks, and Remus Apparated away, Harry went down to the Potions lab to make himself useful. Their Healing Potions were in high demand now, given that most of the other teams didn't have the facilities or the resources to brew. Everyone lent a hand when they could, and he chatted cheerfully with Dean, Luna, and Ted as they watched over half-a-dozen cauldrons, each carefully labeled with the name of the potion, its recipe, a timer, and next steps.

Harry's mobile suddenly trilled. It was Sol's number. He stepped outside to answer it. 

"Sol? Hello?"

"Harry?" He had to strain to hear Sol's whisper. "Harry," Sol's voice grew a little louder, enough that he could hear the urgency in it. "I have two kids with me, Bella and Jake. They're being hunted by a gang of wizards. We're hiding in a warehouse, second floor. You have to help them, Harry."

"I will. Give me the address."

Harry noted it down and ended the call. He dialed Hermione upstairs. "Hermione, is anyone back from the Millbrook evacuation yet?"

"No, they're encountering a lot of resistance," Hermione's voice was strained. "Has something happened?"

"I need to go out on a rescue. Wandsworth." Harry gave her the address.

"Harry, you can't go alone. It's too dangerous."

"They're kids, Hermione. I have to go."

"Then I'll—"

"No! We need you for coordination. Just send backup when you can. I can hold out for that long."

"Be careful, Harry. Please."

"I will." He ended the call and sprinted down to the subbasement. Andromeda had volunteered for cell duty, and she was seated on a stool reading a book. She looked up at his sudden appearance.

"I need to go to Wandsworth. Hermione has the address," he informed her.

She nodded, her habitual calm giving her an almost regal air. "Be safe."

"Thanks." He Disillusioned himself and Apparated into a nearby alley. The address Sol had given him led him to an old abandoned warehouse, its rusted corrugated roof half fallen in. He could feel the change in air pressure as he approached, and he quickly backed out of the Anti-Apparition barrier to a safer distance. Judging by the size of the building, he was facing at least seven, eight opponents. 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw two unmasked wizards approaching the warehouse entrance—Snatchers. Two grown men hunting kids for money. He let the anger flash through him and blast out of his wand with explosive force, knocking them both back hard against the side of the building opposite. He left them there in a crumbled heap and summoned their wands, snapping both against his knee like twigs and flinging the pieces contemptuously aside.

Harry quickly circled the warehouse, but found none of the other wizards. He probed the area around the doorway carefully—empty. He stepped inside and waited for a moment to allow his eyes to adjust. 

The warehouse had once housed a small construction company. Left-behind boxes and crates of nails, screws, bolts, caulking, flashing, and other miscellaneous hardware long since looted clean had been recycled into seats, stands, and tables by its current occupants, some of whom stared blankly through Harry as he passed; he doubted they would have remembered his presence among them even if he had not been Disillusioned.

Two more Snatchers stood at the foot of the stairs, arguing.

"You said we were gonna do something fun, Reg," one complained, a woman with a round flat face and spoon-shaped nose, rather like a koala. "It stinks in here like Nundu breath!"

"You want fun, Tab, you want fun?" snarled the wizard beside her, matted blond locks quivering about his red bloated face. "'Ere's your fun!" He aimed a Stinging Hex at a bearded man sitting against the wall about four feet away, his head lolling loosely as he muttered to himself. It was impossible in the gloom to tell his age, but Harry could clearly see the livid purple lesion stretched across one sunken cheek. The man barely reacted to the spell. "Filthy Muggles, even the monkeys at the zoo have more life in 'em," the Snatcher spat in disgust.

"You just gotta know where to hit 'em," the witch explained. "Lemme have a go, watch."

Harry stunned them both and threw their broken wands down next to them.

The first floor was more of the same, the stench of old vomit and human waste mixed with traces of burnt plastic and vinegar, the floor littered with trash and the insidious glint of needles, bodies sprawled in various states of pain or ecstasy or both.

His boots crunched on glass, and the guard at the bottom of the stairs looked up. This one was robed and masked, and Harry knocked him unconscious as his wand came up, much too sluggishly to be of any use. Harry summoned both his mask and his wand. His pale-skinned face was nondescript, framed by black hair. He looked vaguely familiar, but not enough to trigger any memories. Harry tossed down the pieces of his wand and disintegrated his mask.

Halfway up the stairs, a high, piercing, terrified scream broke through the whispers and moans that formed the background noise within the warehouse. Harry sprinted silently up the last few steps to see Sol at the top, blocking the way of a tall masked Death Eater along with two Snatchers, one holding a boy of no more than eight, his small body hanging limp from his arm, the other a weeping girl perhaps a year or two older. 

"Get out of my way, boy, unless you want to get hurt," the Death Eater said in a rough, rasping voice.

"You never were very original, were you, Iacchus? No wonder Artemisia dumped you," Sol mocked.

"Don't delude yourself that your uncle's name will protect you here, when you're interfering with the Dark Lord's business," the Death Eater Sol had named 'Iacchus' hissed menacingly.

"My uncle can go to hell and take your 'Dark Lord' with him feet-first," Sol answered coolly. "Weren't you going to beg your father for a job in the Ministry? You should've stuck with the Magical Maintenance Department, because that's going to look loads better for your résumé than 'ran around the country abducting little kids.'"

"You always were a mouthy little freak. Too bad my brother isn't here to protect you any more." He raised his wand.

"I never needed your brother to protect me," Sol lifted their head defiantly. 

"Selwyn, deal with him and let's get out of here. I want my bounty!" said one of the Snatchers behind him.

Iacchus' eyes almost bulged out of his head when his slash of the wand did nothing. Sol looked surprised for an instant before a Cheshire smile stretched their lips. "Something got your magic, Iacchus? Maybe my freaky Squibness is spreading."

Iacchus actually backed away a step before he hurled another hex at Sol. Harry's shield absorbed it without a trace. As a puzzled Iacchus shook sparks and mist out of his wand, muttering, Sol spread their arms wide and raised them in a slow dramatic gesture of summoning. Harry couldn't help but smile at their theatricality.

"Selwyn, look out!" one of the Snatchers shouted as Sol brought their hands forward in an exaggerated throwing motion.

Fire blossomed in the air between them, and Iacchus flinched back, swearing.

A stir of magic on the floor below distracted him from the scene in front of him, and Harry tensed. "Potter, this is Ava Harper," said a projected voice in his ear. "We're coming up to you."

Harry exhaled in relief. He conjured a white lily out of the top stair to mark his position. A moment later there was a touch on his arm. "We'll take care of the Snatchers. Can you take out the Death Eater?"

"Fifteen seconds," Harry whispered back.

"Scared, Iacchus?" Sol sniggered. "Better run home to your Dark Lord and tell him you lost to a Squib." They lifted their hands again, and this time there was a trace of actual fear on Iacchus' face as he raised his wand irresolutely.

Sol thrust their arms forward, and Harry stunned Iacchus as his countdown reached zero. All three bodies hit the ground at the same time. The anti-Apparition barrier faded out.

"Your timing is so good I should have Zephyr put you on stage as a stand-up comedian," Sol grinned, turning.

"You weren't so bad yourself." Harry dismissed his Disillusionment. "Did you learn that casting technique from a Disney villain?"

"Dragonball Z, as a matter of fact," Sol retorted loftily.

Harry had to laugh at that. He half-turned as his backup blinked into visibility. "These are Ava Harper and Ismaël Khan, ex-Aurors. They've been working to get Muggle-borns to safety."

Harper and Khan both nodded at Sol, but didn't offer to shake their hand. Sol pulled away, their expression blanking into a smooth mask as they nodded back. Harper helped the little girl to her feet while Khan bent over the boy. The girl didn't seem to want to speak to Harper; she launched herself at Sol and pressed her face against their waist instead. Sol looked lost, but after a second or two, they knelt and wrapped their arms around her. Harry squatted down next to them.

"Bella?" Sol said in as soft a voice as Harry had heard them use, stroking her hair, "Bella, love, I have some friends I want you to meet. This is Harry. Harry Potter. I bet you've heard about him. And that's Ava. She's an Auror. Her job is to protect people like you from the men in masks."

"Is my brother dead?" Bella asked.

Harper glanced at Khan and reassured her, "Sweetheart, no. Your brother is going to be just fine. There, see? He's coming to."

Khan had Rennervated the little boy, and he was sitting up and rubbing his eyes. Bella stumbled over to her brother and clung to him tightly.

"Iacchus said that their parents were killed in a raid at their home this morning," Sol whispered.

"Iacchus?" asked Khan.

"Iacchus Selwyn," Harry supplied, _accio_ -ing his mask and disintegrating it as he had done the one downstairs. Now he remembered where he'd heard that voice before: tormenting Xenophilius Lovegood in another life. 

Harper sat down next to Bella and talked with her quietly for a few minutes. Then she told Harry, "They don't seem to have any other relatives they can go to. The last of the Millbrook group is Portkeying out in the next ten minutes, and I want them to take Bella and Jake. I know Gabriella and Emily from school, and they have a daughter of their own. I trust them to take care of these two. Is that okay with you?"

Harry looked at Sol, but they had wandered away with their arms around their abdomen. He nodded. "Yeah. Thanks, Harper."

As Harper and Khan got ready to Apparate away with the children, Sol suddenly questioned, "What about the Death Eaters?"

"What about them?" Khan asked.

"Are you just going to leave them here?"

"We snapped or took all their wands. They shouldn't be a danger."

"Not to wizards, maybe, but there are Muggles here," Sol argued.

Khan and Harper gave each other a look. "Sol's right," Harry interjected. "I'll take care of it. Thanks for the help, Harper, Khan."

They nodded at him. Bella hugged Sol again before they Apparated away.

"This is what I hate about you wizards," Sol growled. "You treat the rest of us like we're not even here."

Harry touched Sol's hunched shoulder. "Sol. I see you. I see your anger, and I see how justified it is. I'll make things better, I promise."

Sol laughed bitterly, pulling away. "As if you could."

Harry sighed. "Well, let me start with the problem we have here."

He thought for a moment and decided on the Forest of Dean as the best he could do for now. Even wandering around aimlessly Iacchus Selwyn and his gang should eventually stumble on the Snatchers' encampment there before they starved to death.

Once he was done side-alonging everyone out, Harry found Sol back at the warehouse seated against a wall. They were pale and sweating, hunched over their stomach. Harry slid down the wall next to them, feeling light-headed. "You don't look so good."

Sol snorted. "Pot calling kettle."

"Meth?"

Sol gave him a sidelong glance. "Heroin, if you must know."

Harry closed his eyes as blackness crept in around the edges of his vision. "Come back with me," he whispered. 

"I'm nobody's project."

"I...didn't think you were," Harry grunted with an effort. Oh. He'd over-extended, hadn't he? This was the first time he'd thrown magic about in a completely Muggle area since healing Hedwig. "Could you..." he lost his train of thought for a moment. He opened his eyes with a huge effort to Sol lightly slapping his cheeks. "Stop that..."

"Then stop fading out on me," Sol sounded strained. No, scared. "Could I what? Harry? What's wrong?"

"Mobile, in my pocket," Harry mumbled. "Call Hermione... tell...her..." And everything went black.

Harry drifted out of unconsciousness to weak late afternoon sunlight, a very fuzzy memory of garbling something at Hermione's pale concerned face, and the sounds of retching from his loo. He didn't feel nauseous, thankfully, but the ominous throbbing at his temples told him that he'd regret it if he tried to move around too much.

The toilet flushed, and Sol walked in, pale as a sheet. "How're you feeling?" they asked.

"Like I have a New Year's hangover without the New Year's Eve party," Harry responded ruefully. "You?"

"Same, except I had the party first," Sol smirked. 

"Thanks for getting Hermione for me."

They shrugged and tilted their head at something on his nightstand. "A tall woman with long black hair left that for you. Said it was for the headache."

Bless Andromeda. He felt around blindly and managed to pick up the stoppered bottle without moving his head too much. "Want some?" he offered. "It's a general painkiller. Should help with the cramps. It doesn't even taste that bad—compared to most potions, anyway."

"No thanks," Sol said shortly.

Harry downed the entire contents of the bottle in a few quick gulps and closed his eyes for a moment, waiting for it to take effect. After counting to twenty, he gingerly sat up and sighed in relief at the quickly ebbing pain. "You sure you don't want any? It doesn't have any side effects that I know of."

"Unlike Muggle opiods, you mean?" Sol retorted.

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I just want to help, if I can."

"Well, you can't. You may be the 'Boy Who Lived,' but killing one power-crazed madman isn't going to suddenly cure the Wizarding world of its problems. This heal-the-world-with-kindness schtick you've got going on? It doesn't work. Because people will always disappoint you. They'll always leave you. And when they do, they'll take your heart with them so all you've got left is a hollow simulacrum of yourself. Why the fuck am I here, Harry?"

"Because I need your help," Harry held Sol's gaze. "And because you're wrong. You _can_ heal the world with kindness, and time. But it's not enough to change the world—not as quickly as we need it to change, anyway. For that you need ideas, activism, advocacy, power. We're talking about the structures and systems of the world, the things we build that will last beyond any single one of us. How we go about conceiving a society that rewards fairness and has fail-safes that will carry the most powerless and voiceless of us in the times our reason and compassion founder. If we win this war, some of the people in this house will hold that power, and I want you to have a chance to get to know them, and them to know you."

Sol scoffed and rolled their eyes. "I hate that trick you have of knocking the soapbox right out from under me. I bet it annoys the hell out of your friends."

Harry shrugged. "I'm bribing you with a better one. There is a caveat, though."

"Right, now it comes."

"Everybody who wants to stay here has to swear an Unbreakable Vow not to reveal what you learn about us to anyone outside. It's a lot more specific than that, but essentially it's to protect us in case we're infiltrated."

"That's it?" Sol asked.

"That's it," Harry confirmed.

Sol thought about it for a moment. "Not like there's anyone I'd want to tell anyway, so fine."

"All right, let's go down to the library. You okay with a couple of flights of stairs?"

Sol rolled their eyes. "I'm in withdrawal, not infirm."

They found Hermione, Percy, and Remus in the library, all of whom looked up when they entered.

"Harry! How're you feeling?" Hermione asked.

"Loads better, thanks for fetching me." By her bright smile and cheer, he judged that both the mission and her spell-testing had been a success. "This is Sol Campion. Sol, I'll introduce everyone once we're done with the formalities. I'm asking Sol to stay. They've agreed to take the Unbreakable Vow. Percy--"

"No!" Percy burst out, springing up from his seat. Everyone looked at him, startled. His face had gone pale and twisted with loathing. "I'm not doing it! Harry, I don't know what he's told you, but his real name is Sol _Yaxley_."

"That's Sol Gaius Campion-Yaxley to you, arsehole," Sol said sweetly.

_Oh, shite._

_Why didn't you know about this?_

_I don't know, Percy must've seen some file on Sol that disappeared in the interim. We only ever knew them as Sol Campion._ He felt like banging his head. "Look, let's all calm down, okay?" 

Percy ran right over him: "He's Corban Yaxley's nephew, and he's a _Squib_."

"At least I'm not a wanker like you."

"That's enough," Harry said. "Hermione, would you take Sol's Vow? I'll witness it."

Hermione looked at him, then Percy, and hesitated. "Maybe we should talk this over..."

Sol spun and strode out of the room. "Get me out of here, Harry. I'll be down in the subbasement," they threw over their shoulder.

Harry glared at Percy, not bothering to hide his anger and frustration. "I know you're hurting and you're dealing with trauma, Percy, but that doesn't give you the right to hurt other people."

"He doesn't belong here, Harry," Percy stood his ground. "His file says he's living in the Muggle world, and that's all for the best."

"That's not for you to decide." Harry turned and followed Sol.

Down in the subbasement, Sol leaned casually against the bars of the first cage, staring into the middle distance with hooded eyes. For once their expressive face told him nothing.

"I'm sorry, Sol. That was entirely my fault."

"Nice to know even the Boy Wonder can't always get his way," Sol responded without rancor. "I don't belong here anyway. You don't need a fuck-up like me. Take me back to Wandsworth if you can Apparate that far, or somewhere close by if you can't."

"Sol..."

"No. I'll walk out the front door if you won't."

Harry Apparated them into the same alley from that morning. No magic stirred, but there were plenty of people out on the streets, all of them dealing in pieces of their soul, though he could not have said which were the buyers and which the sellers. The sun, hidden all day behind an iron curtain of clouds, had slunk off-stage without anyone noticing, and the breeze that picked up carried the first chill hints of autumn. Sol's shoulders were hunched a little beneath their thin t-shirt. They reached into their pocket and held out their hand to Harry. On it lay two tiny golden keys and a mobile phone.

Harry picked up the keys. Cleared his throat. "Keep the mobile? You can always call me if something happens. If you need help, or..."

Sol shrugged and tucked it back into their pocket. "Bye, Harry," they said without looking at him, and began walking away.

"Wait!" Harry reached into his mokeskin pouch and called up the traveler's cloak he'd never had a chance to wear. He jogged up to Sol and handed it to them. "Here. This should keep you warm even in winter."

Sol's hand stroked the smooth fabric. "I'd look ridiculous in this thing."

"Fabulous," Harry corrected. "Start a new trend. Vampire casual-chic."

Sol snorted and cleared their own throat, almost smiling. "Thanks. See you around, Harry."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Drug addiction
>   * Recreational drug use
>   * Drug withdrawal
> 



	25. Chapter 25

Severus stared at the open Map on his desk, eyes absently following the Carrows flitting in and out of the parchment's edges as they stalked the boundary of the Forbidden Forest. It was just past dinner, and the siblings were already prowling for rule-breaking students. 

He knew few others who took such petty pleasure in tormenting others, and that was saying something. They were psychopaths, pure and simple: psychopaths who were now allowed to use and teach two of the three Forbidden Curses in and out of the classroom, for when the Ministry had legalized their use, Severus had not been able to refuse. What end result had Dumbledore expected when he'd extracted that promise from Severus? Children who came out at the end of it all with the best magical education in the world and an implacable hatred of Muggles, ready and eager to serve the Dark Lord? Or, if tortured and broken in spirit, then at least alive, forever relegated to the silent fringes of Wizarding society? Would they count as Severus' successes or failures?

He had kept Potter out of his head all day, but now he allowed himself to remember the events of last night, a bright thread in unending gloom. Those memories already felt far away: surreal, suspect. What could he possibly have said to elicit that smile from Potter? He could not recall a single word. Eventually he had to admit to himself that he was waiting—just waiting; when the faint pop came from the cloakroom, he could almost believe that he'd already been sitting there for hours. But no: a quick _tempus_ told him otherwise. Had something happened? He flung the door open with more force than he'd intended. Potter looked up at him with widened eyes.

"Sorry, I know I'm early," he said. "I can wait in here if you're busy. I was about to conjure a chair."

"You're not conjuring anything in that state," Severus spat. Fuming, he Transfigured the straight-backed wooden chair in front of his desk into a large cushioned armchair, then pulled Potter out by the arm, marched him to it, and parked him in it. "Your magic is so depleted I'm astonished you're not comatose. Or splinched. Moody has no business—"

"Wait, you can feel that?" Potter interrupted him.

"What?" 

"My magic. That it's depleted," Potter said, sounding genuinely curious.

"I'm not blind," he glared.

"Well, I mean, from what I've seen, most people aren't that sensitive. Maybe fifty percent of the Wizarding population wouldn't be able to tell you were a wizard if they were standing next to you on the train. Of the remaining, most of them can't tell anything about your magic—its strength or identifying characteristics or whatever—even if they can sense that it's there. Not without a touch of wands, anyway. That's why most Aurors don't bother asking witnesses if they sensed a magical signature. Plus, everyone describes them differently, and they can be disguised by things like Polyjuice."

Severus blinked. He'd never considered his ability to distinguish between wizards and witches by their magic special in any way. "I...never realized."

"So...I guess that means you could feel Lord Thingy when he was sharing my head, huh?" Potter looked away with a grimace, rubbing at his scar reflexively.

Severus suddenly understood something very important. "In the girls' lavatory last night...when you opened the way to the Chamber of Secrets...that was the piece of the Dark Lord's soul I felt?"

"Yeah. I had to—er, take it out of its box, so to speak, to use Parseltongue."

Severus wanted to throw something. How could he have missed this for all those years? He had never questioned the revulsion he'd felt for James Potter's brat from the first time he'd laid eyes on him, and his mind had certainly supplied reason enough. But now he could see it was just that: justification for a loathing he'd never bothered to unravel or excavate to its root cause, exactly the kind of sentiment the Dark Lord manipulated so successfully.

But would it truly have mattered? It would not have changed the fact that there was too much history between them, history that Severus would have held against him with malicious satisfaction in any case. Severus was not a good man; he had always known that he could not live on sweetness and good deeds like those who had suckled those things from their mothers' breasts. From his own mother he had learned how to survive on loathing and spite rather than those trite notions of love and kindness—which was certainly of more practical use, given their abundance in the real world. Severus was not one to forgive and forget; without his resentment, bitterness, jagged edges, scars, who was he?

"Don't change the subject," Severus snapped. "How in the world did you get to that state?"

"I was an idiot, which I'm sure you know everything about," Potter gave him a wry look. "I'd rather not have to explain exactly how, if you don't mind. It's kinda raw right now."

What a ridiculous tactic, Severus thought: to reveal the precise way in which you could be hurt and expect the admission of weakness to protect you. He should under no circumstances allow Potter to get away with it.

"As idiocy has been your default state for as long as I've known you, I suppose an explanation would be superfluous," he said—bitingly, he thought, but it caused Potter's mouth to turn up at the corners.

"How was your meeting with Cho?" he asked instead of protesting the insult. "I think we both sensed the undercurrents from last night."

Undercurrents. When Chang had been a student, the other staff had dismissed it as negotiating the normal travails of a romantic relationship—strictly outside of their purview, especially once Diggory had graduated. Dumbledore had barely mustered the pretense of concern, preoccupied as he'd been with loftier matters. 

"I offered her separate rooms. She refused," Severus responded. "There's not much more I can do, unless Ms. Chang herself requests my intervention."

"Which she likely won't," Potter sighed. "How much danger is she in, do you think?"

"Before your revelations, I would not have imagined Mr. Diggory to be physically—or magically violent. I can only say that I have seen no signs that Ms. Chang has been assaulted."

"The psychological manipulation can sometimes be worse," Potter leaned his chin against an arm propped up on Severus' desk, eyes distant. "I always hated cases like this—it makes me feel so helpless."

Severus had never spoken of such things to anyone. Though the association with unhealed parts of his own past was unpleasant in the extreme, he was also fascinated by Potter's admission. As usual, curiosity won out. "You've had other experiences, then."

Potter looked at him, contemplative and stunningly open. "I don't know how much you want to go into this, but: yeah. When Hermione became Minister, she started several initiatives. One of them was an organization and categorization of cases that were dropped or otherwise remained unsolved across all departments of the DMLE. One of the largest categories was crimes committed against witches by wizards, and we're not even counting offenses by wizards against female-identifying or -presenting Muggles. It was staggering. The culture of dismissing and trivializing the type of violence which abnormally impacts women was so ingrained in the DMLE that we had to put everyone through a re-education program."

"I can't imagine it would have been popular."

"Oh, not in the least. We couldn't even find any models in the Wizarding world to base the program on. We had to go to the Muggle world. They weren't perfect, not by a long shot, but at least they'd already started working on the problem. A few people tried a more immersive route: Uni courses in Psychology, Sociology, Women's Studies, and Gender Studies; shadowing Muggle social workers and police departments, working at shelters and manning hotlines. Most of us couldn't handle it. I couldn't—not the first time 'round, anyway."

"It sounds like a harrowing course," Severus commented.

"It was brutal, yeah. A constant stream of the ways women are harmed by the world, made 'less than' simply because of their gender. Then you begin to see the patterns and realize that it's society itself that needs to change. And that's where I lost it. Because I didn't want to admit that I was doing the exact same thing to Ginny."

Severus opened his mouth and closed it, unsure how to respond to that admission.

"Not the abuse, though all the assumptions about our roles that we accepted without question were certainly not harmless. That all the sacrifice would be on her part, for example. That when we were ready to have a family, she'd be the one to quit her Quidditch career and stay home with the children. That I'd be free to have a pint with my mates after work, while she'd be looking after two toddlers and an infant. That it was normal for me to gripe about my work, while any complaints from her somehow constituted disloyalty to her family." Potter pushed his hands into his hair. "Sorry. I didn't mean to make this all about me."

Severus found that he wanted to know the rest of it, that he wanted to know everything about that other life Potter had lived. He almost regretted turning down Potter's offer to read his mind—but no, the thought of violating him again in that way was enough to make his stomach writhe with nausea. "Ms. Weasley does not seem to me the type of person to passively accept the role assigned to her," he offered.

"That's true, up to a point," Potter nodded, "but it's very difficult to resist the pressure society puts on us to conform. Do you know what the main obstacle to Hermione becoming Minister was? Certainly not her opponent, who stood for the position fourteen times and lost fourteen times; it was the perception that she was betraying her family by putting her career before her husband and children. She got Howlers calling her a bad mother, a bad wife, a cold-hearted selfish bitch, a destroyer of family values. She almost backed out. And Ginny...Ginny desperately wanted to be Harry Potter's wife. In the end, I think it was because we're both such stubborn people that the marriage lasted as long as it did. Anyway." He sighed and ran his hands through his hair again. "I'm worried that Cedric's very successfully isolated Cho from her entire support network. That's usually when things can go bad very quickly, and without anyone noticing."

Severus thought on that for a while. "Ms. Chang has friends within the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor Houses, does she not? Perhaps I can find a way to give her time alone with them without the presence of Mr. Diggory."

Potter tilted his head. "That's a great idea. If I haven't told you yet, I think you make a brilliant Headmaster."

The compliment caught Severus off-guard. He cleared his throat to hide his discomfiture. "I would never have expected those words from your lips," he attempted with the same openness Potter had gifted him.

"Oh, my seventeen-year-old self still wants to have it out with you, but maybe later when I'm not about to ask you for a favor," Potter replied lightly.

"A favor," Severus tried not to tense.

"Two potions," Potter said quickly as if he'd guessed what associations Severus applied to that word, what his masters had asked him in the form of 'favors.' "And you can totally refuse, of course; that's why they're favors. Um. The first one probably won't come as a surprise to you, given that it's nearly impossible to find a credible maker of the Wolfsbane Potion right now. All we can do is lock Remus into one of the cages at Grimmauld Place during the full moon, and it's not exactly a morale-booster. Plus Tonks is pregnant, and—"

Severus held up a hand with a grimace. "I am absolutely certain I do not want to hear anything more about Nymphadora Tonks' relationship with Lupin. I will make your Wolfsbane Potion provided you don't say another word about it."

"Thank you!" Potter beamed and mimed drawing a zip across his lips.

"And the second?"

"Hmm, okay, you're probably going to think I'm insane for this one, but... you've done research into blood curses, right? What about a cure for the Maledictus Curse?"

Severus frowned. "You know a Maledictus? A woman who will one day be forced to permanently take the form of an animal by a blood curse?"

"Er...yes?" Even Potter's eyes had gone shifty.

"Who?" Severus demanded bluntly.

"I was hoping you wouldn't ask..."

"Potter, who?"

"Uh..." the other man coughed. "Nagini."

Severus' mind blanked on the name for an instant. Then he roared, "The Dark Lord's bloody _snake_?"

Potter winced. "She wasn't always evil. She helped Dumbledore fight Grindelwald, in fact. Someone destroyed most of the records on her, but we found out that much. She was working with Nicolas Flamel and Newt Scamander."

"Potter, you told me that Nagini killed me in your other lifetime."

Potter scratched the back of his head. "So it won't happen in this one. That doesn't have to prejudice your decision, right?" he gave Severus a hopeful smile.

Severus fought the urge to wrap his hands around that pale, scrawny neck and _squeeze_. "Insanity does not begin to cover the sheer incomprehensibility of that peat-bog you call a mind. Say that you are successful in restoring her to her human mind and form. What then? Kill her immediately thereafter for the Horcrux she bears? Or will you allow her a few days to wallow in the hopelessness of her situation before doing so? If she must die, would it not be better as a mindless animal?"

"I'm not sure that she is mindless, actually. I mean, the whole talking to snakes thing has always confused me. How much intelligence do you need to have to be considered a sentient being with a consciousness?"

"Must you choose now of all times to digress into philosophy?"

"Sorry, sorry. But, well, aren't these the questions philosophy is supposed to answer? What I meant to say was that though I've always found snakes pretty intelligent (and nice, too, as long as you don't accidentally step on them), it's possible that Nagini might still have a human mind. It's never been proven one way or another. And I agree with you about suffering, but: what if it's important that she has a choice? What if her soul needs her to make that choice?"

"Her soul," Severus tilted his head back to look up at the ceiling, sighing. "That is a field in which I have little expertise. More to the point: you do realize that no known cure for the Maledictus Curse exists?"

"I know it's a long shot all around..."

"You'll owe me two favors," Severus added, for it would not do to give in too readily.

"I will," Potter foolishly agreed with typical Gryffindor bravado.

"Very well. I shall require certain books from the Black library. And the vial of dragon blood, assuming you still have it?"

"Oh, is that what's in that crystal bottle? Huh. Ron thought it was fireworks flower wine. Good thing we didn't try to drink it."

Severus gave him a narrow-eyed look. "Your flippancy does not amuse me."

"Dragon's blood is serious business, got it," Potter responded without missing a beat.

After a moment of silence, he ventured, "Since you were willing to talk to me that first night, I suppose you're not one of the people who think I killed Lucius Malfoy?"

"No one with a brain larger than the size of a shrivelfig would believe you killed Lucius Malfoy. Unfortunately, that appears to exclude half the Wizarding population."

"Hah," Potter huffed a rueful laugh. "How is Draco doing?"

"Like any young man forced to live a reality he knows is false. Prone to fits of rage and lashing out at anyone who will not retaliate."

"Is there any way I can help him? I can offer Draco and Narcissa asylum..."

"He would only betray you," Severus stated with a certainty that he hoped would dissuade Potter from a course of action that could only result in complete disaster. "You are the target of his hatred, and that will not change until he is ready to be honest about how his family has come to such a pass."

"Understood," Potter sighed. "What about you? Are you all right? You and Lucius always seemed friendly..."

Severus didn't try to hide his grimace. "If your idea of friendship is a relationship built on mutual trust, common ground, and liking, then we had nothing of the sort. It was an alliance of convenience more than anything else. Lucius was venal, narcissistic, and avaricious, all of which made him predictable. That was useful. And at least he could hold up his end of a conversation."

"I guess Lord Thingy forgot to add a rating for 'after-dinner conversation' when he picked his Death Eaters," Potter murmured.

"Indeed," Severus agreed dryly.

At that point Potter's stomach gave a startlingly loud growl, and both of them looked down at it. "Sorry, don't mind me," Potter said sheepishly, right hand pressing against his abdomen.

"You've not eaten," Severus frowned. 

"Been a bit busy," Potter shrugged. "It's not important."

"Winky," Severus called.

"Wait—" Potter's eyes widened.

The house-elf arrived promptly with a low bow. "Headmaster."

"Winky, please bring Mr. Potter a tray of whatever is left over from dinner."

"Yes, Headmaster," the little elf said, and popped way.

"Winky cannot betray me," Severus assured Potter. 

"I— That wasn't—" Potter blinked and bit his lip as if he were holding back some strong emotion. "Thank you," he finally said.

Severus looked away. There was something dangerous about Potter's gratitude, or perhaps his own unthinking desire to draw it out of him like clear, sweet sap out of the growing heart of a maple in Spring. (Like poetry written with the simplest of words, which pulls you in with its luminous clarity until you find yourself changed simply by the fact of understanding.) "Do try not to faint on me before we finish our task for tonight."

Potter held up a hand solemnly. "No fainting 'til the job's done, I swear."

Winky returned with a large silver tray laden with bread, brie, lamb chops, slices of pot roast, fresh greens, large chunks of grilled potato with herbs, and a tall sweating glass of pumpkin juice. "Thanks Winky!" Winky bowed to them both and disappeared. "Wow, this is a lot," Potter remarked, eyes alight. "Would you like to...?"

"No." Severus got up and went to a shelf, picking up a book at random and flipping it open. He kept his eyes on the words, but they made no sense, and could not distract him from the sounds of Potter practically inhaling the food. He considered a silencing spell, but surely Potter would be able to tell, which would result in awkward questions that Severus couldn't answer. Like why he sometimes wanted to brush Potter's shoulder with his hand as if to impress the reality of their presences on one another, while other times he felt the urgent need to put the length of an entire room between them.

"I have an idea about the Carrows that I want to run by you," Potter said sometime later, once he'd done a credible job of clearing the tray. "Listen..."

"There is no possible way a plan with that many variables can work," Severus told him flatly, once he'd laid out all the twists and turns. "You can't depend on luck to always fall your way. And why the Giant Squid, anyway?"

"It's cinematic," Potter answered impishly.

Severus rolled his eyes, then decimated the rest of the plan with precision and relish. They spent the next few hours erecting a new one over the bones of the old. 

"Guess I'll be heading to Kyoto tomorrow," Potter stretched hard when they finally came up for air. Severus looked away. He realized with a slight shock that it was past midnight.

"There is still the matter of the Elder Wand," Severus pointed out.

"Yeah." Potter slumped back in his chair. "D'you want to take care of it some other time? I still don't really know what to do with it, to be honest."

Severus thought about it for a moment. "No. Putting this off will make it no easier."

"All right. Let's go, then."

They made their way beneath a waxing crescent moon to Dumbledore's tomb, the white marble edifice glowing pale blue even in the near-total darkness. 

" _Homenum revelio,_ " he heard Potter cast the spell somewhere to his right, though he could not see the other man. 

Severus himself didn't bother to remove his Disillusionment. He quickly unraveled the wards over the tomb and paced skittishly away, unable to go through with the next step quite yet. Then the great slab over the tomb lifted and shifted silently a few inches to the left, revealing a line of darkness and nothing more.

" _A-accio_..." Potter faltered.

Severus forced himself to take a breath. There was no scent of decay, as he had feared—no scent of anything, really. He held out his hand and called out, " _Accio_ Elder Wand."

Dumbledore's long bone-white wand soared out of the opening. He heard Potter exhale. "Have you made up your mind?"

"Destroying it is probably the safest course, but I'm not sure if I can," Potter admitted. "If Lord Thingy comes looking, you'll be in danger..."

Severus slid his fingers over the handle, worn smooth as silk over the centuries by hands belonging to names long passed into legend or infamy. Deathstick, Wand of Destiny, Kingmaker and Kingslayer...whosoever commanded this wand wielded Death's own scythe. But for all its power, it could not call anyone back from the dead. It could not heal broken friendships, mend the past. Severus took hold of the tip with his free hand and brought it down sharply against his knee, snapping it cleanly in two. In the moment of absolute silence that followed, he called dark heatless flames to his hand and let it consume the wood until the ashes drifted out of his palm and faded into the night.

He could feel Potter's gaze on him, tangible as a midsummer breeze, but he said nothing. Instead, the white marble slab slid back into place and sealed the tomb once more. Potter's hand tentatively touched his shoulder, then rested on it as he rewove the wards, and afterwards they looked out together at the Black Lake and the thin sliver of a moon hanging over it, a tiny boat adrift in a shoreless, glittering sea.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neville wants to run away to Spain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is going to be ugly, folks. Please jump to the end notes to see warnings for this chapter. 
> 
> In apology, I'm posting the next chapter later this week. Thank you for all your support for this story!

Neville Longbottom was not cut out to be a hero. He knew this because his parents were heroes, and he had none of their strengths, such as his father's eloquence, Charms proficiency, and fortitude, or his mother's wittiness, extensive knowledge of protective spells, and stellar memory. He certainly did not have their courage. While they had been a delight to their friends and the life of any party, he quickly tired of the noise and merry-making of even his own group of friends. When his grandmother had visitors, he was always begging to be excused to go out into the garden, where he could happily tend to his tiny plot of scavenged and rescued plants in silence for hours.

Everybody knew that a hero needed to be like Harry, with his handsome features, natural leadership ability, the true bravery of Gryffindor, and a Destiny. The only thing he lacked was height. At least Neville had that over him, with the sudden growth spurt he'd experienced last year. Not that it mattered, really. Harry could have any girl he wanted, while Neville, aside from the brief flare of the Yule Ball in Fourth Year, was still entirely out to sea.

No, Neville knew himself to be a follower, not a leader. It bothered him much less than his gran, who was always encouraging him to join things, like the Slug Club and Dueling Club and even a Quidditch team, when really all Neville wanted was a trowel, a little dirt, some seeds, some water, a little sunlight, and a quiet place in which he could let his thoughts sink into the earth until they were full and ripe enough to pluck back up.

That brief episode of insanity on the train? He didn't really know what came over him. It was just that all his friends had been so glum, wilted and gray at the edges as if they'd been kept in shade away from sunlight all summer. Ginny, usually so quick to laugh and tell amusing anecdotes of her brothers' latest adventures, gazed out the window with her pet Pygmy Puff Arnold lying in a tiny puddle of purple fur on her lap. Seamus had already been by their compartment twice, asking if anyone had seen Dean. Even Lavender and Ron had foregone their usual post-separation celebratory snogging, instead holding hands and leaning together in silence. Harry, Hermione, and Luna had been missing entirely.

The Slytherins had made it a point to be as loud as they could, so that gloating cheers for a barely-veiled 'regime change' and declarations of 'now they'll get what's coming to them' could be heard quite clearly from the next car. Someone—Malfoy, probably—had bought all the trolley witch's snacks so that by the time she made it to them, only four boxes of Cockroach Clusters were left on the cart—one for each of them, he supposed.

That was when the Death Eaters had boarded. Murmurs, quickly hushed, preceded their passage down the train car, followed by the _thunk thunk crack!_ of luggage being hurtled to the floor. Everyone's face grew strained and grim at the cries of fear and protestation from the other students, but nobody moved. Neville suddenly saw the entire year ahead laid out like an open scroll, the indignities and persecution of which this was but a prelude. The blood rushed to his head.

He had no idea afterwards what he did or said when the door to the compartment snapped open, but when it was over he sank down into his seat and started shaking so hard his teeth clattered in response to Ginny's concerned inquiry.

"I-I-I'm all ri-right. I ju-just n-n-need a m-m-minute."

"Here." Ginny set Arnold down gently in his lap and pulled his hand onto the soft warm wriggling ball.

"That was brilliant, Neville!" Ron saluted him. "Nice going!"

But Neville felt only fear. He was not a hero, and he was not a leader; when he'd stood up, none of his friends had followed. What had made him do that? Was this what Gran had feared in him, why she was always trying to get him to be with other people? Was it going to happen again? He'd had recurring nightmares over the years of standing in front of the Great Hall with a faceless sea of students all pointing and laughing at him. This summer the nightmare had changed into something else, something darker: the sea of blurred faces all turned to him, watching, some with pleasure, some with apathy, some with helpless terror—as Snape stalked toward him, black robes billowing behind him like a shroud, his wand lifting...

Neville decided then and there to keep his head down this year, make as little noise as possible, and run away to Spain after he graduated. Spain had a nice rose garden. He liked roses. Surely they'd have room for a good gardener?

Neville kept to his resolution for about a week. Snape had announced that Cedric and Cho, their Ministry Liaisons, would begin holding office hours, and that any student who had _concerns_ about their academic career—this said with a sneer—were welcome to meet with them privately: the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins with Cedric, the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors with Cho.

Everyone knew that it was all an act to convince the powerful families still standing on the sidelines that everything was normal, that nothing had changed with Dumbledore's death insofar as Hogwarts and the Ministry working together to ensure the best education for their children. So long as people could be kept in doubt—so long as they were not personally disadvantaged—they would maintain the status quo. Nevermind that the status quo had already been ripped apart by a herd of rampaging Hippogriffs and thrown in with the dragon dung for fertilizer.

Everyone knew, that is, except for those still innocent to the ugly truth. That afternoon, as he was doing his rounds at the greenhouses, he heard sobbing from behind the flutterby bushes. He parted the leaves to see a Second or Third Year student in Ravenclaw robes seated on the ground, arms around his upraised legs, crying his heart out.

"Hey, are you okay?" Neville squatted down next to him. "What's wrong?"

The boy lifted his head and glared at Neville with bloodshot pale blue eyes set in a roundish freckled face. "I hate it here!" he yelled passionately. "I hate the stupid weather, and the stupid accent, and our stupid tiny apartment, and pumpkin juice, and this stupid school, and the teachers who tell lies and bully students, and the evil Headmaster who lets them, and Cho Chang, who's supposed to care and doesn't. And I hate Parvati Patil!"

Neville processed this speech for a minute. "That's a lot of things. My name's Neville Longbottom, what's yours?"

"Alex Horwitz." He held out his hand solemnly, and they shook.

"Well, I have to admit that things aren't great around here right now, but we did just get a pot of Exploding Chinese Lanterns. Wanna see?" Neville offered.

The Ravenclaw jumped up, tears instantly forgotten. "Yeah!"

Plants, apparently, were one of the few things Alex didn't hate about his new home. As Neville showed him around the greenhouses, they chatted about the similarities and differences in the flora in and around Hogwarts versus at Ilvermorny, located on the highest peak of Mount Greylock in the state of Massachusetts in the United States. Neville, of course, was particularly interested in its famous Snakewood tree.

He eventually learned that Alex and his sister Leigh had arrived mid-term last year, and they were both sorted into Ravenclaw. His sister had been even more homesick than him, since they'd had to leave her beloved palomino pony behind. But she had quickly made friends in Ravenclaw, including Padma, who had introduced her to her sister Parvati. They had become close, which had made her happier than he'd ever seen her. She had even looked forward to returning this year, despite the cloud hanging over the school.

"And then Professor Carrow—the one who teaches Muggle Studies—saw Leigh and Parvati holding hands and kissing, and she gave them detention. It's so unfair! Other students go around holding hands and kissing all the time! I've seen this redhead and his girlfriend all smushed up against each other by the bleachers after Quidditch games—gross! How come they don't get detention? And now Parvati won't talk to my sister, and she cries all the time. So I went to Cho and told her she should tell Professor Carrow to apologize, and Cho said she can't, because Professor Carrow was right." Alex kicked a rock halfway across the greenhouse. "I hate this place!"

"So it wouldn't matter to other people if your sister and Parvati were holding hands and kissing at your old school?" Neville asked curiously.

"Why should it matter to other people who you want to kiss, as long as they want to kiss you?" Alex asked with the unassailable logic of a thirteen-year-old.

Gryffindor and Ravenclaw shared double-Muggle Studies this year, the only reason for which, as far as Neville could tell, was to allow Alecto Carrow full rein to rant and rave for one-and-a-half hours on the inferiority of Muggles every class. The invectives flew fast and furious once she really built up steam, and Neville would be impressed if it didn't make him feel sick to his stomach.

He had stopped paying attention after the first five minutes of the first class for the sake of his own sanity. So what if he failed this class? Was it going to stop him from being a Master Herbologist? (It would probably stop him from being an Auror, given the current state of affairs, but that had always been a pipe dream. Besides, the Aurors were hunting for 'Dark Wizard' Harry now. What a bloody joke.)

This time as he came in and sat down at his usual seat by the window, he paid a bit more attention to the rest of the class. A pretty witch dressed in blue-trimmed robes with shoulder-length honey-brown hair and the same pale blue eyes as her brother came in with downcast gaze and sat diagonally across and two rows over from Neville. Parvati made it in just before Carrow and was forced to sit in the only remaining seat front and center. Leigh's eyes took in Parvati's hunched shoulders and clenched fists before dropping to stare down at her desk. Even in profile she looked sad.

Suddenly Leigh flinched, and Neville tuned back into what Carrow was saying: "We cannot allow their perverse ideas to corrupt our youth. These insidious whispers of how natural it is for two men or two women to copulate together are nothing more than an attempt to weaken us and break apart our families. The Muggles want to exterminate us! They are animals, and animal degeneracies spread through their society like a disease. Sex between a witch and a wizard for the purposes of building a family is right and glorious. Witches or wizards who want to kiss and touch those of their own gender are disgusting and can never be tolerated in our virtuous society!"

She had come to a stop next to Leigh, and screamed this last directly into her face. Leigh leaned back from Carrow as far as she could, eyes squeezed shut, crimson face averted, looking as if she were about to cry.

Most of the rest of the class stared down at their desks uncomfortably. Padma was shooting worried glances at her twin, while Parvati looked straight ahead at the board. 

"I have a question." Unlike that time in the train, Neville felt intensely present in the moment, agonizingly aware of almost every eye in the room turning to him. But this time his anger served as a ballast and shield rather than an explosion. "What's wrong with two wizards or two witches having sex with each other, as long as they like it?"

"Longbottom, is it?" Carrow sneered. "If your loser parents hadn't had sex with each other, where would you be now?"

"Non-existent, but it's not like I'd care at that point. Besides, if my mum had chosen another wizard to have a baby with, I'd still be non-existent," Neville shrugged to absolute silence.

"Since it seems that there are some students in this classroom who are too dense to understand my meaning, let me spell it out for them: the ultimate purpose of sex is to have children and build a family. That's how Wizardkind survives."

"How come the Ministry passes out pamphlets on how to prevent pregnancy and we have to go to classes about it, then? Isn't that counterproductive?"

A few titters greeted that question. Carrow was now standing over his desk and screaming into his face. "Witches should consider it an honor to bear a wizard's child! Otherwise they're nothing but selfish bitches!"

"How come you don't have a kid, then? Couldn't find a wizard other than your brother who wanted to do it with you?"

Carrow smacked him across the cheek, hard. "How dare you talk to a professor like that! You are a disgrace to your name! I will have Headmaster Snape expel you from this school!"

For once Neville didn't feel afraid. "Let Snape expel me, then. I'd rather be pricked with rose thorns than sit here listening to this garbage."

The funny thing about that mandatory attendance policy: apparently students couldn't be expelled. He was given detention, and since it was just him that night, he spent a happy few hours swapping rumors of Harry sightings with Hagrid in his cabin. 

Alex became a frequent visitor to the greenhouses, chattering about the small ranch they'd left behind in Nevada, the vast expanse of desert they could see out of their bedroom windows, the thunderbird he once spotted silhouetted by lightning against the sky on a wild stormy night. "My sister said to tell you 'thank you,' by the way. She said the way you spoke up in Muggle Studies was really brave. What did you say?"

Neville shrugged. "I wasn't brave, I was angry. Your sister doesn't have to thank me, I just pointed out how everything Alecto Carrow said was a lie."

"That sounds pretty brave to me," Alex remarked, studiously watering baby mandrakes until they wriggled with delight. "A lot of people don't speak up even when they know something is wrong. But that just makes everybody else think you agree with the liars and the bullies, doesn't it?"

Neville thought back to Fifth Year, how Harry had stood up to Umbridge. How that had given him the courage to join the DA. Maybe it was time to revive Dumbledore's Army. Maybe it was time to fight back.

Even given that Defense Against the Dark Arts had become Dark Arts, Neville still couldn't believe his ears the day Amycus Carrow announced that they would be learning the Cruciatus Curse. The _Cruciatus Curse!_ The curse that was responsible for his parents lying with minds shattered in hospital for the past sixteen years. 

"No!" he shouted, springing up from his seat. "It's evil! I won't do it!"

"Good," Carrow smiled with satisfaction. "Looks like we have a volunteer. Come up to the front, Longbottom." Neville wanted to refuse, but his legs betrayed him, walking him woodenly up next to Carrow. "Now then. Who wants to try first? Crabbe? Very good. Your father always liked this spell. Let's see if you take after him. The incantation is ' _crucio_.' Point your wand forcefully. Don't forget: you have to mean it."

Crabbe swung his wand forward at Neville. " _Crucio_!"

Even though he knew what the curse could do, Neville wasn't prepared for the pain that ripped through every nerve in his body like a jagged shard of lightning. He screamed and crashed to the ground, and the curse abruptly ceased.

He climbed shakily back to his feet to see Crabbe looking stunned and Carrow smiling. "Well done! I knew you had it in you. First time? Impressive. Next time keep it up a little longer. I know the screaming can be a little distracting, but just hold onto the spell and you'll be fine. Who's next?"

Goyle pushed eagerly to the front. "Let me have a go!"

This time Neville didn't wait for Goyle to cast; his _expelliarmus!_ flattened Goyle into the wall behind him and sent his wand spinning through the air. As Neville reached for it, another _crucio_ crashed into him, and he went down again. This time the curse didn't ease up after a second or two; he felt as if he were boiling alive in his own blood, his bones blackening and cracking apart within the cauldron of his skin.

Then suddenly it was over, and he opened wet blurry eyes to see two shiny black boots standing next to his head. 

"Just what is going on here?" said the icy voice that whispered through his nightmares. But he was too dazed to be frightened now, too grateful that the pain had ceased. 

"Just teaching a recalcitrant student a lesson, Headmaster," Carrow muttered.

"Then why have I stepped into the scene of an insurrection?" Snape's voice sneered. "I expect you to keep better control of your classes than this, Professor."

"I will, Headmaster," Carrow said resentfully. "I will be sure to discipline the troublemaker—"

There was a swell of dark muttering, cut short by Snape's snarl: "I will discipline the troublemaker. You will repair the damage and proceed to teach the rest of your class with the decorum befitting a Hogwarts Professor. I assume you can find a way to demonstrate your lessons without inciting utter chaos."

Then Neville was levitated upright. The scene in front of him was absolute mayhem: chairs flung all about, lying upside-down, on their sides, and broken in pieces all around him. Every Gryffindor was on their feet, wand out, facing off against the Slytherins. Several students on both sides sported boils, rashes, bloated body parts, and smoking holes in their robes. Ron and Seamus stared white-faced at him as he floated past.

All the students were in class, and Neville bobbed down empty corridors with Snape's deliberate foot-falls echoing behind him. Neville tasted blood on his tongue—he must have bitten his lip earlier. Dread began to fill his veins with ice. What was Snape going to do to him? Torture him some more? How long would he last before he ended up like his parents? Kill him? Maybe he should even hope for that; the Killing Curse was painless, wasn't it?

Neville was trembling violently by the time Snape lowered him into the seat in front of his massive desk in the Headmaster's office. Heavy chains slithered over his ankles and wrists to keep him in place.

Snape took his seat and stared at Neville with hooded eyes, a great serpent eyeing the tiny mouse in its coils. "So," he hissed, "you have decided to take up Mr. Potter's place as Agitator-in-Chief. Did you imagine that I would be as tolerant of such mischief as my great predecessor now that this school is mine?"

Neville threw a desperate glance at the portrait of Albus Dumbledore hanging behind Snape's chair, but he was sleeping soundly.

"I will not tolerate disrespect!" Snape's fist struck the desk, and Neville jumped. "I will offer you a choice, Mr. Longbottom. Either you will apologize to me and to both Professors Carrow in front of the school for disrupting their classes and robbing your fellow students of their precious learning time, or..." His black wand slid into his hand so quickly Neville didn't even detect the movement.

A mass of terror-filled confusion blanked Neville's mind. He had no doubt Snape could realize any threat he chose to issue. He could apologize for disrupting class, couldn't he? And he would even mean it. He was no stranger to humiliation, and surely it would be easier than facing whatever Snape had in mind 'otherwise'...

"No," Neville heard himself say as if from a great distance. "I won't apologize to you, and I won't apologize to them. What they're teaching has no place in this school."

Snape's face darkened, and his eyes flashed dangerously. His wand slashed forward—

—and all the lights in the room went out.

For a moment Neville heard only his heart beating in his throat. Then he made out light footsteps running for the door—but not light enough, for Snape shot out of his chair, barking, "Stop!" There was a flash of spell-light, and Neville ducked. Snape's heavy tread strode past him. The office door opened and closed. Silence descended.

Neville strained against his bindings, but they budged not an inch. He couldn't reach his wand, and his " _accio_!" failed completely. He'd never gotten the hang of wandless magic.

Then suddenly all the candles in the room flared back to life, and the shackles retreated. He shot up blinking, squinting around wildly. "Who's there?" he demanded. There was no one. Snape was gone; even Dumbledore was still asleep in his portrait.

A deep, hollow voice suddenly boomed into the room, sounding as if it came from all directions at once. "Neville Longbottom!"

Neville cringed. In his experience a booming voice was never a good thing. "...Yes?" he responded timidly.

The voice declared solemnly, "I am the Guardian of Hogwarts. Your courage in the face of adversity has awakened me from my long sleep. Know that I stand with you."

Neville opened his mouth and closed it again. Finally he ventured, "...Harry?"

There was a pause. The voice concluded blandly, "If you have need of help, call for me and I will aid you. I give you Words of Power and Chaos in token of this promise." It gave Neville Words of Power and Chaos. "Do not use them lightly. Go now."

Neville stumbled out of Snape's office to his next class—Herbology, thankfully—wondering if perhaps he was actually still sitting shackled to the chair, mildly poisoned and hallucinating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Homophobia/homophobic language
>   * Depictions of torture
> 



	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry comes home after getting chased around by some deer.

Harry pressed his hands against his stomach, sides aching with laughter. "P-please stop glaring at me, I can't help it! Your face! If you could've s-seen it..." At Snape's ferocious glower, he slid right out of his chair and onto the floor bonelessly, wheezing.

Snape whirled without a word, and Harry caught at the hems of his robes in supplication. "Don't go. I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Just give me a minute." Snape stopped, and Harry knelt with his face buried in the black cloth, breathing in the many interesting scents, attempting to muffle the last of his snickers.

Finally he got to his feet, somewhat calm again. "Sorry. Thanks for going through with that. I know it was, ah, painful." Snape gave him a sour look, and Harry met it with a small smile as they went out of the cloakroom together. "Is Neville all right? I assume you would've dosed him or sent him off to Poppy if your diagnostic reading came back with anything worrying."

"He was under _Cruciatus_ for less than a minute, though I'm sure it felt subjectively much longer. At that duration the incidence rate of permanent or semi-permanent damage, either physical or mental, is vanishingly small."

Harry nodded, but responded to the dark look on Snape's face: "You got there when you could. Don't worry, Neville is tougher than you think."

Snape huffed and muttered, "I shall be exceedingly surprised if this plan of yours succeeds."

" _Our_ plan, remember? Come on, how can it fail if we're working together?"

Snape gave him a level look that made Harry's lips curl up again at the edges. He reached into his drawer and extracted a translucent stoppered bottle full of some thin liquid topped with curling wisps of blue smoke. He placed it on his desk in front of Harry, who picked it up with utmost care. "The Wolfsbane?" he asked.

Snape nodded. "Keep it under stasis until the first dose tonight. There is enough for a week."

"Thank you, really. I know Remus would be beyond grateful to you, if he knew you were the one making it for him."

"I don't need his gratitude," Snape growled. "Remember that you owe me a favor."

"Two," Harry smiled. "Whether or not you succeed in making the other one."

Snape growled something under his breath about fools and Gryffindors. "Why Mr. Longbottom instead of one of the Weasleys, if I may ask? I would have thought them to be the more natural choice, given your association with them and their...robust temperaments."

"I don't want someone who's going to shoot first and ask questions later, or try to solve every problem with a hex. Violence should be a last resort, not the first," Harry answered promptly.

"Hmm," Snape commented circumspectly. "Do I detect a hint of Ms. Granger's sententious influence in that statement?"

"Oh, more than a hint," Harry admitted. "I mean, a part of me still thinks pitched battles in the hallways might be fun, as long as nobody's tossing around anything too lethal, but I'm guessing you wouldn't appreciate that."

Snape glowered. "Go away, Potter. I have work to do."

"Going!" Harry responded cheerfully, cradling the bottle of Wolfsbane in one hand against his chest. "I'll be back tonight. Oh yeah, I brought something back for you. _Omiyage_." He reached into his mokeskin pouch and placed the beautifully-wrapped package on an empty area of Snape's desk, ducked back into the cloakroom, and Apparated away.

A souvenir...? Severus poked at it with his wand. The wrapping was printed rice paper depicting chrysanthemums in white, yellow, pink, orange, and red edged in gold. The package was flat and rectangular, somewhat wider than a wand box, and so light that it slid soundlessly across the desk at a touch. Severus narrowed his eyes at it. Potter wouldn't have given him an empty box...would he?

...Not that it really mattered. He tucked his wand away and forced his mind back to his paperwork. Unfortunately, it consisted of a bundle of letters forwarded from the Ministry by his liaisons, written by parents of some of their most powerful families, all demanding personal assurance that their precious progeny would be safe from Harry Potter, the newly-arisen Dark Lord. He read through about half of them before pushing them away with a growl of disgust and reached for the box.

It made no sound when he shook it cautiously, and had no untoward scent. He drew his wand again and cast a detection spell at it, which told him that whatever was inside was air.

What?

Had Potter _actually_ given him an empty box?

One more try, and the detection spell said: metal.

He cast a _tempus_ : no, it wasn't time for his potion yet. He narrowed his eyes at the box. _One_ more time, and: fire.

He had to admit that as a mystery it was rather infuriatingly perfect. Severus huffed and reached for the letters again. He was not an adolescent, and he _would_ finish his work before giving in.

Perhaps an hour later he had completed the first draft of a reply, and finally permitted himself to cautiously peel back the wrapping paper. The box inside was plain white. He paused a moment before lifting the lid. Inside floated a feather which must be longer than his arm when uncurled, its barbs pure gold and glimmering with fire. His eyes widened. 

Back at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Harry found Tonks facing off against Luna and Dean in the Training Room, with Hermione fanning her sweaty brow and watching from the sidelines. She beamed when she saw him. "Harry! You're back!" He held the bottle of Wolfsbane out of the way as she hugged him.

"Hi Hermione! Missed me?" he grinned.

"Wish I could've gone with you instead! Is Japan as amazing as they say?"

"Probably more! Here, I got you something." He had to set the Wolfsbane down and reach both hands into the mokeskin pouch to extract it. "Oof. Careful, it's heavy." He placed the gigantic tome into Hermione's arms, and her face lit up.

"An Illustrated Bilingual History of Mahoutokoro! Wow, Harry..."

"Thought you might enjoy a little light reading," Harry teased.

"Thank you!" She tilted her head at the bottle against the wall. "Is that...Wolfsbane?"

"Yeah," Harry replied. "I found a contact who was willing to make it for me."

"Someone you trust?"

Harry nodded. "Someone I trust absolutely, or I wouldn't have asked."

Hermione looked at him curiously, but didn't ask, and he chose not to answer the question that he knew was on her mind. Then she looked down and said quietly, "I'm sorry about what happened before you left, with Sol."

Though they'd spoken on the mobile every day while he'd been away, they had not spoken much of that day. "I'm sorry I put you on the spot," Harry replied carefully. "I should have asked beforehand instead of taking anything for granted, or assuming your agreement, or Percy's."

Hermione bit her lip. "Is it true, that Sol is a Squib?"

"Yeah. They ran away from home when they were seventeen or so. They've been living among Muggles in London ever since."

"'They?'"

"Sol identifies as a gender that is neither strictly male nor female—non-binary, so prefers to use 'they' and 'them' as personal pronouns."

"Oh." Hermione paused to digest this. "I guess I'm kinda having a hard time understanding why you'd want...them here. Without magic, wouldn't they be better off in Muggle London? This is a war they can't fight, and they won't be able to defend themselves if someone came after them. And on the flip side, we're not really equipped to help them with...with the drugs and whatever pain they're dealing with."

"This is a hard one," Harry sighed, sliding down the wall to a cross-legged seat on the ground. "I was hoping that if Sol did want to stay here, it would mean that they were ready to go sober. I don't know, I might be too naive about that. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, after everything that went down in that warehouse." 

Hermione sat down beside him as he briefly described the phone call, finding Sol facing off against Iacchus Selwyn and the Snatchers, the orphaned children, the conversation with Harper and Khan. Then he went back and summarized their other meetings. 

"Sol's right about this much: I've never really had to think about the role of Squibs in our society before now. We don't like to talk about them much, do we? Arabella Figg seems to do all right for herself living mostly in the Muggle world, and Filch isn't exactly a sympathetic person. So much of the Wizarding world is predicated on magic that you start to take it for granted. But it doesn't have to be that way. Wizarding society is made up of people, just like Muggle society. Sol was born into this world. They grew up on Quidditch and Chocolate Frogs and pumpkin juice and the Tales of Beedle the Bard, like Ron did. And if you think about how miserable Filch always seems, and how stubbornly he clings to this world—isn't that a measure of how much he loves it? How could anyone say that they don't belong here?"

"But they can't Apparate or ride a broomstick or cast a shield," Hermione pointed out.

"Maybe not, but Sol can break one," Harry smirked a bit. "Or will be able to someday. Don't ask me how, but remember what I said about there being only three successful break-ins to Gringotts that I know of? They're the third."

Hermione blinked at that. "Wow. That's...pretty amazing, actually. So that's why you wanted them here? Because of Gringotts?"

"Partly. And partly because...dammit, Hermione, what are we fighting for, if not to give everyone in Wizarding society a place where they can make a home for themselves? Shouldn't that include both the ones who were born into it, like Sol and Filch, and the ones called to it, like us?"

Hermione smiled ruefully. "It's not very pleasant to be on this end of a moral argument, is it?" She buried her face in her hands. "I can just feel myself blushing from shame."

Harry leaned his shoulder gently against hers. "Don't feel ashamed. We're all learning from each other, all the time."

She nodded and exhaled. "Have you heard from him—sorry, them, since then?"

Harry shook his head. "I don't really know what the right thing to do is, here. Sol seems conflicted about it themselves. I don't want to push when they're not ready, but the drugs scare me."

"Can you at least call them, then? Just as a friend saying hello? And if they do want to come back, I would gladly witness."

"I can try. Thanks, Hermione."

There was a crash from the middle of the room, and Dean and Luna went down in a tangle of limbs. Tonks pulled them both to their feet, cheerfully pointing out weaknesses and other spells that may have been more effective. Then she bounded over. "Wotcher, Harry! Welcome back!"

"Thanks Tonks! Here," he carefully picked up the bottle of Wolfsbane and handed it to her. "I found someone I trust to make it for Remus. It's under stasis; keep it like that until night. There should be enough doses for the whole week."

Tonks' eyes grew round. "You're amazing, Harry!" she beamed at him and very slowly and carefully carried the bottle out of the Training Room, presumably to tell Remus.

"Hi Harry!" Luna and Dean both came over to join him and Hermione, faces flushed and sweating with exertion. 

"Tell us about Japan, Harry! Did you see any tengu? What about kappa?" Luna asked, eyes bright.

"No tengu or kappa, but I did get pushed around by some very aggressive deer," Harry chuckled, and told them about his visit to Todai-ji, the 1200-year-old Eastern Great Temple, where a herd of sacred deer had followed at his heels demanding snacks. Eventually he'd had so many of them pursuing him that he'd begun to attract the attention of the locals, and had had to beat a hasty retreat. Deer: 1; Harry: 0.

He found Percy just before dinner in the library, making an inventory of the remaining Portkeys and their various destinations. 

"Percy," Harry said softly at the door, and Percy shot up, scattering a lapful of scrolls to the floor. "Sorry, I was trying not to startle you. Do you have a minute? I can come back if you're busy."

Percy took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "No—" his voice came out a bit high, and he tried again. "No. Um. Come in?"

Harry waved his hand at the fallen scrolls, and they re-stacked themselves on the table. He sat down, and after a moment of hesitation so did Percy. 

"I owe you an apology—" Harry began at the same time as Percy, who blurted out:

"If you don't want me here anymore—"

Harry ran a hand through his hair. "Er, I think I'd better go first. Percy, I'm sorry for not asking for your consent before bringing up the Unbreakable Vow with Sol. I'm sorry I took your agreement for granted. It was wrong of me, and it won't happen again. I would never ask you to leave because of that. This is your home for as long as you like, and if I never made that clear before, I'm making it clear now, and I apologize for the uncertainty that has caused you."

Percy blinked, looking a little stunned. "Oh. But...don't you think I'm an arse, too?"

Harry coughed. "If I were judging by that criteria, I'd have to kick myself out, too." At Percy's hurt look, he sighed. "Percy, I can't tell you that you were right to talk about Sol the way you did. Anything you feel towards Corban Yaxley should apply to him alone. You made a whole lot of unkind assumptions based on the fact that Sol is his nephew, but you actually have no idea who Sol is as a person. And I'm sure you of all people know that there are privacy laws meant to protect people from exactly the kind of disclosures you made based on what you read in their file."

Percy's jaw clenched, and his face reddened. "You didn't even know that he was related to Yaxley. I was just trying to warn you."

Harry looked at Percy and didn't argue. "Can we agree that if something like this happens again, you'll pull me aside and warn me in private?" There was a moment of silence, but Percy nodded. "Thanks, Percy. By the way, how did you happen to come across Sol's file?"

"Yaxley asked me to pull it and destroy it."

"Any idea why?" Percy shook his head. "Hmm." Because Yaxley didn't want Voldemort's circle to discover that his family had produced a Squib? Or some other reason? There was a thought circling at the edge of his mind, but it wasn't quite ready to show itself yet. "I'd still like to have Sol stay here if I can get them to agree. I get that the association is painful for you; is there anything I can do to make things easier for you?"

"I wouldn't need to talk to him, would I?"

"Not if you don't want to."

"Fine."

Harry sighed again, privately this time. "Let me know if you think of anything."

After dinner Harry went up to the roof, where Kreacher sat on a ledge and gazed up at Hedwig wheeling and swooping far above him. He watched them both for a while, the old house-elf and the owl communing silently there in the shadows of a waxing half moon. Or maybe they were simply content to be each alone in the presence of the other, to feel that that was enough. 

He withdrew back down to his own room, where he sat on his bed in the dark for a few minutes before reaching for his mobile. He brought up Sol's number, touching the keys one by one instead of using voice commands. His thumb hovered over the 'Call' button for a long time before pressing down.

The dial tone buzzed in his ear again and again. He was about to end the call just as a deep, gruff voice answered, "Yeah?"

Something in him sank at the unfamiliar voice. But he tried, "I'd like to talk to Sol, please."

"Who?" the man on the other end demanded as if he were affronted by the very idea of being asked to redirect a call.

"Sol. Sol Campion."

"Dunno nobody named Sol. Yer got the wrong number, mate."

"Yeah you do!" said another voice, a woman's, tinny and distant. "'s the junkie who—" he couldn't make out the rest of the words.

"Oh yeah! How come you know his name, then? Yer been stepping on on me?!" To Harry: "Fuck off and don't call this 'ere number again."

The connection cut off. Harry stared at his mobile. _Shite._ "Sol..."


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry puts Snape to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I can't believe this story is now over 100,000 words. Thank you so much for sticking with it. I really appreciate your kind comments, kudos, and constructive feedback!

"What's wrong?" Snape demanded as soon as he stepped out of the cloakroom, and Harry paused.

"I'm sorry, am I late? I thought we agreed on midnight." Had Snape expected him earlier? Was he making it a habit to arrive too early?

"I didn't say you were late, I'm asking why you look like someone kicked your pet crup," Snape answered irritably.

Oh.

He'd tracked Sol's mobile through the pairing spell to a residential area of old Wandsworth, to the lair of a small-time drug dealer and his crew. There was only one woman—rough-cropped dirty blond hair, hard lines at the edges of her eyes and lips, makeup like a mask—the voice he'd heard on the phone. He'd waited until she stepped outside for a smoke break, alone, before approaching, hands carefully held out where she could see them.

"I called earlier about Sol," he told her. "Do you have any idea where they are?"

She looked him carefully up and down. "You his boyfriend or something?"

Harry hesitated. She might be more forthcoming if he answered in the affirmative, but. "Just a friend."

"You know anything 'bout what you're dealing with, boy? These things, these drugs, once they get you, they ride you like a demon. He ain't gettin' out 'til he decides good an' proper he wants out, an' sometimes not even then. This ain't his first time, I can tell. Eddie's a right chav tosser, but he don't cut his stuff with none o' that rubbish some 'o the others use. But sooner or later your friend Sol's gonna run into one o' the other wankers, an' that'll be it for him. 'Meth'll ruin your life, heroin'll end it,' they say. So my advice to you is, let him be, you go on and live your life. Maybe he'll find his way back into it, maybe he won't. But you chasin' after him while he's chasin' the high, that'll lead to nothing but heartbreak."

Harry took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I appreciate your honesty. I don't know whether or not I can help them, but right now I'm just trying to find them. Do you have any ideas about where I should look?"

Her eyes had shuttered then, like someone who had spoken of experience earned through pain only to have her words shoved back in her face. "Try the warehouse," she answered shortly, flicking the glowing butt of her cigarette away.

"I have," Harry said carefully. "Can you think of anywhere else?"

She looked at him as if she wanted to ask how well he could defend himself. Then a tiny shrug, a decision to not care: "There's a park two blocks west o' 'ere. Try there. An' don't call Eddie or come 'ere again."

Harry winced at Snape's observation. "It doesn't have anything to do with this—" he waved vaguely, "—the plan. I just—" He ran a hand through his hair, suddenly too tired to even speak. It felt as if the past few hours had numbed everything, the memories distanced by necessity as soon as they'd been made. "I can show you, if you'd like?" he nodded at the cabinet which held the Pensieve.

Snape stood. "Show me," he said.

Harry drew his wand and concentrated on his meetings with Sol—four strands of misty silver, joined by a fifth from his fruitless tonight. He dropped them into the dark liquid and looked at the thin meager wisps for a moment before backing away to let Snape take his place. He paced for a while before he sat down in his customary seat, leaned back, and closed his eyes. 

When Snape emerged from the Pensieve with an audible step backward, his lips were compressed into a thin line. "You never take the easy route, do you?"

Harry shrugged slightly, unsure of Snape's meaning. "I do when there's an easy route to be taken."

"Surely there are easier routes than falling in love with the Squib nephew of Corban Yaxley, who's also a petty thief and drug addict."

Harry's eyebrows vanished into his hair. "Is that what it looks like to you? And besides, Sol's a lot more than any of those things."

"Such as?"

"Future criminal mastermind, for one," Harry smirked.

Snape huffed. "You're joking."

"I assure you I am not. They were a legendary thief in my time."

"I see. The Auror and the outlaw. I suppose it has a certain poetical symmetry."

"You're rather invested in this theory of opposites attracting."

"It's no investment to state the obvious."

Having this conversation with Snape felt entirely surreal. "I thought it was obvious that if Sol's in love with anybody, it's with that wizard in the car."

"Therios Selwyn?"

Harry's mouth dropped open. "Wait, you know him?"

"Don't change the subject."

"I thought this was the subject."

"The subject is you going to some unsavory lengths to attempt to save someone you've only met four times."

"Apparently I have a 'saving people' thing. Not to mention, there's a part of me that feels guilty about taking magic for granted in a society that actually drives people out for the lack of it. And I'm going to argue that even though some of the locales were unsavory, all I did walk around and talk to some people. Besides, you've done more to save me while hating me."

Snape opened his mouth and closed it again before telling him curtly, "Take back your memories."

Harry did. "So, Therios Selwyn. What can you tell me about him?"

Snape thought for a moment. "He's an Unspeakable. My own recollections of him at school are vague—I am almost certain he was a Ravenclaw, and did not deviate from the mold of that House significantly enough to leave any lasting impressions. I have never heard him being referred to as a Death Eater, but given that both his older brother and father-in-law bear the Mark, and he is of a Pure-blood family that supported the Dark Lord politically both in the last war and this one, it would not surprise me if he were of that persuasion. If you would know more, try Andromeda Tonks."

"Andromeda, really?" 

"She's a daughter of Cygnus Black III. Don't make the mistake of thinking that means nothing."

Harry frowned. "I'm...not sure what to do with that statement. She was like a living ghost in my other timeline, after her husband and daughter both passed. I guess I never really got to know her... It felt like she just kept retreating further into the past. Anyway. I'll ask her. Who's Therios' father-in-law?"

"Corban Yaxley. Selwyn is married to Yaxley's daughter Artemisia. Your Sol even mentioned her."

"Right, huh... I don't know why that feels so surprisingly expected, like I should've been able to predict your answer if I'd thought about it. That must be how Sol knows him." 

"So you must also see how I am justified in my skepticism of your assertion of a romantic relationship between your future criminal mastermind and Selwyn."

Harry refrained from arguing that he hadn't asserted a romantic relationship, _per se_. It wasn't really the point, after all. "You know, I can't quite tell if you really think I'm in love with Sol or if you're overstating the case because you're trying to draw me out."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Why did you answer, if you suspect me of being disingenuous?"

Harry leaned back against the wall next to the Pensieve and met his gaze. "Because I know that your life and maybe your sanity sometimes literally depend on your ability to prevaricate, to use rhetorical devices and to fold hidden meanings into your words. Part of being able to say things plainly is to have a position of privilege—or harder, trust—from which to do so: to not have to fear the consequences of revealing too much of yourself. On the other hand, rhetorical devices tend to get my back up, because my experience has been that the people who use them on me are trying to manipulate me into giving more than I am willing to give. So I am _instinctively_ more open with those who are open with me."

Snape considered this for a moment. "Why did you volunteer to show me these memories?"

Harry's turn to pause. "Because I am genuinely tired of having them circle around and around my head, and a little depressed after all the things I saw tonight. But also because I do want your trust? And I suppose, there are things I wanted to obliquely show you, in case you were wondering."

Harry watched as Snape paced away from him, and then back, stopping not quite within touching distance. "To show me...obliquely...?"

"I'd tell you, if you asked. Whatever you might want to ask."

"Ingenuously and non-obliquely."

Harry chuckled softly. "Or otherwise, if it's the only way."

Perhaps it was his imagination aided by the flickering light of candles, but Snape's expression seemed to reflect some inner struggle before it smoothed out again. "Not tonight. We have work to do—unless you'd like to postpone?"

"No, I'm fine for this." Harry heaved himself away from the wall. 

The Marauder's Map was already open on the desk. Harry eyed the suite of rooms on the second floor that belonged to Amycus and Alecto Carrow while Snape spelled open his drawer and took out the two long rectangular boxes Harry had left with him earlier that day. The two Death Eaters-cum-Professors were in their bedrooms, their dots motionless. Now was the time.

Snape drew a wand out of one of the boxes and handed it to him, keeping the other for himself. Harry summoned his Invisibility Cloak out of his pouch. They looked at each other. Snape Disillusioned himself while Harry put on the Cloak. The office door opened silently, and Harry followed Snape out into the corridor.

Snape's concealment spell reduced him to a faint shimmer of air floating past the stones and portraits of Hogwarts, easy to follow only because Harry knew he was there. The part of the seldom-used corridor that abutted the Carrows' suite was dimly-lit and completely bare; Harry wondered if they'd requested it. They stopped in front of the door and reached for the wards at the same time...and somehow managed to metaphysically stumble over each other, canceling out each other's magic on the way down. If they'd been trying to merge shields he'd probably be flat on his back right now. Harry felt Snape's invisible glare on the side of his head and prudently ceded the field.

He was reminded of a conversation he'd once had with Arthur Weasley after being shoo'd out of the Burrow's kitchen for the last time. "Don't look so crestfallen, m'boy. Molly knows you're trying to help. It's just that she has her own way of doing things, see? Too many cooks in the kitchen adds to her stress. Leave her alone to do things her way, and she'll be fine." 

There were orders of magnitude fewer magical partnerships in the Wizarding world than marital ones, and the difficulty that trainee Aurors had with group-shielding illustrated why. Magic had objectively-observable effects, but it was deeply subjective, perhaps as personal as the soul itself. Just as no two wands were exactly alike, so no two people's magic were alike. A merging of magic was the precise opposite of trying to slot together two gears in a Muggle car factory's assembly line.

Not that knowing that made standing around doing nothing any easier. Say what you will about the Carrows, they were no neophytes when it came to their warding. He could feel Snape's strain as he began to deconstruct it. He leaned towards the other man, trying to better sense his magic: the shape of it, its rhythms and cadences, the warp and weft of it, the melodies of its weave. Then he reached out once more—cautiously this time, as if he were flying at the edges of a storm, trying not to get batted out of the sky again. If the ward were a brick wall, then Snape was the wind tearing it down piece by silent piece, and he was the rain seeping into the mortar and softening it slowly.

Then Snape reached down and caught his wrist, and— Suddenly he was flying at the center of the storm—suddenly he was blasting straight through the mortar, the bricks tumbling down in a heap around him. He had to take a moment to catch his breath as Snape released him and gestured the door open. It was cheating a bit, but whatever worked... He was the one to wrap his fingers around Snape's wrist this time before the other man moved forward into the breach. Snape stiffened for a moment, but didn't protest, and after that brief hesitation led him inside. 

The door closed behind them. The Carrows' magic filled the room. There was a trip wire stretched across the entrance an inch ahead of them. Caterwauling Charms had been placed on every piece of furniture. There was some sort of nasty curse coiled on the carpet, another hanging like wriggling threads from the ceiling. They could avoid everything else, but those they couldn't take a chance on.

He stretched out his senses towards the floor curse first, and felt Snape following. It was constructed to work over a large area, built like a cobra to strike upon sensing heat, movement, or sound. It was powerful but not complex, easy enough to deactivate if he could just find the right pressure point. It would just take him a bit to unravel... 

Instead of working with him, Snape's magic struck like a flung trident, pinning the curse to one spot before it could react.

_Okay, fine, that works too._

_Then why were you just thinking that it's less elegant than what you had in mind?_

_Because it is. Also riskier. And more energy-intensive. Oh shush. Concentrate._

The ceiling curse worked by touch, and they rendered it ineffective by weaving a long mesh beneath it, under which they could safely pass through.

They separated at the doors to the bedrooms, Harry heading for Alecto's, Snape for Amycus'. There were no booby-traps in here, thankfully. A diagnostic reading told Harry that Alecto was deeply asleep. He summoned her wand from the nightstand and replaced it with the one in his hand. No two wands were exactly alike, but he hoped very much that a wand made to replicate another by the same famed wand-maker would be similar enough to go undetected.

By the time he and Snape had finished eradicating all signs of their presence, re-woven the wards, and returned to the Headmaster's Office, it was close to 3 AM. Harry saw with concern that Snape stumbled and almost fell into his seat. Had the night's activities taken that much out of him? 

"Are you all—"

"I believe it is time for you to go, Mr. Potter," Snape dismissed him abruptly.

"I'm just—"

"Your concern is neither warranted nor appreciated," Snape sneered, in a tone that intensely irritated one part of him and drove a spike of pain into the other.

He turned without another word. It was only after he stepped into the cloakroom and closed the door carefully behind him (because he wasn't about to lose his dignity over a slammed door, dammit) that he stopped fuming long enough to realize how calculated the coldness and the contempt had been, how closely it followed a pattern of interaction long laid down between them. _That_ voice had triggered associations in his brain leading to responses so instinctual they had bypassed his higher brain function entirely, like a hand jerked back from a hot stove before it had even felt the heat.

But the brain was an amazingly elastic and adaptive organ, with one hundred billion neurons and one hundred to five hundred trillion synapses used for everything from the heart's automatic beat to motion and sensation; language; analytics; consciousness; the rich, complex, not-always-consistent model of ourselves we held in ourselves collapsed into the black box called 'identity.' A self-aware black box capable, with effort, of consciously examining and altering itself and its patterns of thought: to acknowledge that the pain of words was not the same as pain from a hot stove, that we did not have to react to it the same way every time, that we could choose. Harry chose to inhale, then exhale, then put aside his anger and hurt to think about why Snape was suddenly provoking him when they had by mutual unspoken agreement treated each other with courtesy and forbearance since that first night. He opened the cloakroom door.

Snape's head snapped up, his hands paused in the action of uncorking a huge bottle of a forest-green potion labeled with the picture of an eye.

Harry calmly held out his hand. " _Accio_ Wideye Potion."

"Potter," Snape growled, his expression rapidly darkening into rage as the bottle smacked solidly into his hand. 

Harry studied it: half-empty. "How long have you been taking this?"

Snape straightened slowly and crossed his arms. "You are very much mistaken if you think I answer to you in any way, shape, or form."

"I'm not giving this back until I get an answer, so..." Harry kept a tight hold on the potion, readying himself to snap up a shield if Snape chose to retaliate. "You hardly look like you're in any condition for a duel, if I may say so."

"You may not say so," Snape retorted.

"Well, I'm saying it anyway. Maybe you should sit down."

Snape growled low in his throat, but he didn't summon his wand. He also didn't sit. "From the First."

"Continuously?" Harry couldn't help but sound aghast.

Snape didn't dignify that with a response. "I'd like my property returned, if you please."

"You need sleep, not another draught."

"Do not presume to tell me what I do and do not need."

"This is not about presumption, it's about a physiological fact. Our bodies aren't built to go that long without sleep. You're going to start hallucinating, if you haven't already, and eventually go insane if you keep this up."

"I'm a wizard, not a Muggle," the disdain in Snape's voice was cold enough to freeze water.

"Wizards are human beings!" Did no one accept that obvious fact but him? "Besides, it's been tried before. You think you're the only workaholic who's ever thought that staying awake forever was the perfect solution to their problems? The Healers at St. Mungo's have a standard operating procedure for cases like this: they put you in an induced coma for 48 hours and when you wake up they sit you down and explain to you in words of one syllable why sleeping is not optional!"

That was when Snape's legs abruptly folded under him, dumping him into the chair in an inelegant heap. Harry approached with all due caution, in case it was a trick. But no, apparently he'd actually succeeded in putting Snape to sleep just by talking. Or rather, Snape had probably been holding off sleep by sheer willpower after he'd pilfered the Wideye Potion.

Harry set the bottle down on Snape's desk and reached for Snape's wrist to feel his pulse. It was slow but not quite steady, the arrhythmic beat like a faint ghostly echo: ba-DUMP-dump. Exhaustion, probably. He hesitated over whether or not to do a diagnostic spell and ultimately decided not to. He'd invaded Snape's privacy enough.

Up close, the weariness in Snape's face was obvious. Up close, Snape's hooked nose really was rather prodigious, like the bow of a sloop-of-war proudly cleaving all before it. Harry smiled as he gently brushed Snape's hair out of his eyes.

_I'd like to state for the record that waxing poetic about Snape's nose is not normal._

_One: the concept of 'normality' is so relative as to be meaningless in this context. Two: are you stating it for the record because it's something you feel like you should do, or because you are actively repulsed by Snape's nose?_

_Why can't a feeling just be a feeling?_

_Because our marvelous minds are not perfect machines. They are, rather, prone to laziness and certain types of fallacies. How many times have we heard Snape called a 'greasy/slimy git' or 'great bat' or 'vampire?' 'Snivellus?' Those names designate him as 'unattractive' and 'inhuman.' Once they take root by dint of repetition, they constantly color how we see him and require an active effort to dispel. Stereotypes work in much the same way. We sometimes need to poke our brains with a stick to steer them out of established patterns and get them to take in new evidence._

_I'd like to poke you with a stick._

He'd been working as he held the inward conversation, and now gently settled Snape onto a wide Transfigured cot, pulling his boots off to make him a little more comfortable and spreading a comforter over his still form.

_Exhibit A: I present as evidence to court that Snape's hair wasn't greasy or slimy at all._

_This court doesn't take that kind of evidence!_

_The empirical kind?_

_The kind that has to do with Snape's hair!_

_What kind of evidence will this court take, then?_

_None! Court is closed!_

_I believe you just made my point._

Harry poured a cup of Snape's potion for himself and toasted the prone figure before tilting his head back to gulp it down.

Harry was in the middle of going through a list of large-expense items Professor Sprout needed for her greenhouses when he heard Snape's breathing hitch before starting up again, not as slow or deep as before. "There's coffee on the desk," he murmured.

Snape sat up and looked around himself, still a little bleary-eyed, dark hair sticking out in all directions like a hedgehog which had mistakenly gone through a car wash. Harry hid his smile behind the scroll.

"What time is it?" 

_I don't suppose the court will take 'Snape's sleep-roughened voice' as Exhibit B?_

_I CAN'T HEAR YOU. LA LA LA LA LA._

"7:14 AM."

Snape blinked in surprise.

"You slept for 28 hours or so."

"28 HOURS—!"

"Do you need me to explain to you why sleep is not optional in words of one syllable?"

"POTTER—!"

"It's Sunday. You slept through Saturday. The Carrows have been quiet, Neville hasn't used the Words of Power and Chaos yet, no professors have come up to ram down your office door, there haven't been any pitched battles in the hallways, everything's fine. Want to go get freshened up? I'll give you a detailed report after."

Harry faced down Snape's glare with the bland smile he had perfected against multiple Ministers for Magic. Finally Snape stood with boots already on his feet, snatched up the pot of coffee, and stalked into the fireplace, from whence he disappeared in a blaze of green.

The glare was unchanged when Snape ducked back out of the fireplace roughly thirty minutes later, black robes billowing as snappily as ever. He took his seat behind the desk. 

"Potter, you cannot just—"

"I apologize—"

They spoke at the same time.

"—for the intervention," Harry finished. "I know that I overstepped, and that it was a violation of your boundaries. For that I am really, truly sorry. But I also don't have it in me to watch you...to watch you kill yourself for...erm, for (I'm sorry) what seems to me very little practical gain. So I'm calling on my Slytherin side to say that I regret having forced you (though not technically, exactly?), but not that I succeeded in getting you to get some rest. Also, I feel obligated to point out that a reliance on a constant supply of Wideye Potion is a huge tactical disadvantage."

Snape stared at him with narrowed eyes for a few minutes while Harry looked back at him with a sincerity-induced sort of calm. Finally Snape eyed the piles of scrolls and envelopes on his desk and in a 'I'm not kicking you out yet only because you're still useful to me' tone demanded: "Explain these."

Harry pointed at a pile of scrolls. "Staff requests sorted by urgency—everything should be labeled, by the way." An even higher pile of scrolls: "Carrow reports sorted by severity of incident—pretty much all minor." A stack of unopened envelopes: "Letters from parents sorted by political affiliation." Parchment in various bright colors: "Adverts by category." A small heap off to the side: "Miscellaneous by frivolity." The _Daily Prophet_ : "Propaganda, gossip, and misinformation by chronology."

The immediately-suppressed quirk of Snape's lips was probably his imagination. "While you're being so helpful, Mr. Potter, perhaps you'd like to explain this as well." He waved a hand to reveal a familiar white box, then carefully lifted the lid off to reveal a long golden feather.

"Feather from the tail of a Hoho," Harry identified glibly.

"Yes," Snape drawled, in the tone of 'I have eyes, you imbecile.' "I wish to know how you obtained it."

Harry tried his most winning smile. "Would you believe I found it in a gift shop?"

Snape riposted dryly, "Rare as phoenix feathers, impossible to procure even on the black market. People have died for them. Pray tell me which gift shop would dare carry such an item?" 

"Hmm, okay, there's a bit of a story to it," Harry cautioned, tilting his head at Snape to see if he would be let off the hook. Snape's expression said: no such luck. "Erg. Well. See, I decided to take a day to do touristy things. You know, visit some temples and shrines, feed cute deer, walk around the Imperial Palace? Except I decided to do the Palace first. It was raining pretty heavily, and nobody was around. So I turn the corner, and there's this bloke running towards me. Behind him is a girl, maybe fifteen, sixteen, dressed all in white, and she's calling out 'Matte!'—er, 'Wait!' in distress—and he's not stopping. So I catch hold of his arm as he tries to get past, and he yells something at me. I don't have my translation spell up at this point, so I probably look pretty confused. He jumps back and throws something at me. He doesn't have a wand, but the ground sorta erupts in front of me."

Harry paused to take a look at Snape, who gave him a stony stare in return.

"So, no translation needed at that point, and we go a few rounds. It's pretty interesting, you know, Asian spiritual magic. Japanese spiritualists believe they're channeling the power of gods and deities, and some of them can even conjure these huge apparitions straight out of Buddhist teachings, but don't you wonder if their magic and our magic actually come from the same source? I mean, have we touched the divine, too, or are they really calling up whatever images reside within themselves?"

"Potter—" Snape growled warningly.

Harry coughed. "Right. Er, girl in white, rude bloke, fight. In the middle of this another group comes running up—two men and a woman. They're shouting about possession and stuff. They break up the fight by casting some sort of paralysis on both of us. And then they perform this ritual that's supposed to drive out possessing spirits? It calls on the God of War—I didn't understand most of it (I don't think the translation spell was created with Esoteric Buddhism in mind). Really wild. There's this huge, intense flash of white light. The other bloke collapses next to me, but I don't feel anything. Everyone looks pretty weirded out by that. While they're talking amongst themselves I look over the bloke on the ground. He's alive, just conked out. Presumably unpossessed. He's holding something in his hand—a curved piece of green stone with a hole in it. I pick it up and return it to the girl. She thanks me and gives me the feather in exchange. Then she sorta fades away."

Snape pressed long fingers against both temples. "Must you invite trouble everywhere you go?"

Harry attempted an impish smile. "Define 'trouble.' I mean, from my standpoint it was pretty interesting, and kinda fun. The sort of experience you definitely can't have sitting at home looking through someone else's pictures."

"'Trouble,' definition of: you electing to go head-to-head with a possessor spirit who is possibly hundreds of years old instead of leaving it to the professionals in a culture you (and do correct me if I'm wrong) know very little about—on behalf of another spirit, likely a princess of the imperial house who sacrificed herself to become a guardian of the shrine housing your green stone, who gifted you with an item that probably came from her burial rites."

"So..." Harry concluded slowly. "What you're telling me is...I'm the worst-ever re-gifter in the history of re-gifting?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "curved piece of green stone" is Yasakani no Magatama, one of the [three imperial regalia of Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Regalia_of_Japan). Its actual location is hidden, but it's thought to reside at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. 
> 
> The Hoho (or [Fenghuang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenghuang)) symbolizes "imperial" and "female," which is how Snape came to his conclusions about the guardian spirit.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the End Notes for specific warnings for this chapter.

It was very late, the streets nigh deserted, and Harry was beginning to think that he'd made a mistake. At the intersection ahead of him Zephyr had just waved goodbye to one of her performers, who, once out of costume, had reverted to a sandy-haired, cheerful-looking bloke carrying a laptop bag over one shoulder. Zephyr herself was wearing a simple shoulder-length wig, a long subtly-patterned dark blue dress with matching handbag, and high heels that discernibly picked up speed as she continued down the street alone.

Harry had been hoping to speak to Zephyr privately, but decided that he would find some other opportunity; he didn't want to make her feel more wary than she obviously did already. He stopped as she turned at a corner ahead. As he looked around for a sheltered Apparition spot, he heard, "Hey tranny, suck my cock!"

His years as an Auror had taught him the difference between an unpleasant tone and a dangerous one—and this was definitely the latter. He sprinted around the corner to see Zephyr down on the ground, her belongings scattered around her, four young men standing in a half-circle in front of her. One of them was wearing her wig askew to the shrieking laughter of two others, another riffling through her handbag for her wallet. 

The one with Zephyr's handbag flipped open her wallet and barked with laughter. "Get a load o' this one, mates! Zeyad al-Fasih—that you, tranny? Gotta say, you look better as a female."

"Hey!" Harry shouted as he barreled towards them. "Leave her alone!"

The four men ignored him. "Where you're from, don't they stone people like you?" the one with the wig taunted.

Harry briefly regretted that he'd created his glamour to be unimposing and forgettable. He didn't bother to slow; dropping his shoulder, he shoveled straight into the stomach of the man wearing Zephyr's wig, knocking him to the ground with a winded moan. He whirled to the man holding the handbag while he stood gaping: stomped on his foot, drove a knee into his crotch, and finished with an elbow-jab to his windpipe. He stumbled back, gagging and coughing. Harry turned to the last two and held up his hands. "No harm no foul, fellas. You wanna get outta here, find your fun elsewhere?"

They looked at each other uneasily, then back at him. One of them said, "We're cool, mate. Weren't my idea."

"Mine neither."

They backed away and walked off. Seeing their numbers suddenly halved, the man he'd socked in the stomach threw down the wig and wisely decided to follow. 

And then there was one. 

He had short-cropped dark hair, a squarish bearded face flushed with drink, muscles bulging out of his open jacket, and about half a foot on Harry. "Homo," he snarled, tossing away the handbag and whipping a switch-knife out of his pocket.

"You should put that down before you get hurt," Harry warned.

"Shut up!" the man yelled, and lunged.

Harry side-stepped, grabbed his wrist as it overextended past him, and twisted it sharply behind his back. The man yelped and dropped the knife.

"This is the lesson:" Harry informed him coolly, "my sexuality has no bearing on my masculinity, just as that knife has no bearing on yours. No one can make you less of 'a man,' if that's what you want to be, but you're the only person who can decide what kind of man you are. When you bully and hurt other people, you also hurt yourself. It makes you weaker, not stronger." He shoved the man forward. "Go home," Harry commanded in his Auror's voice, and he ran off without a backward glance. 

Harry vanished the knife and cast a surreptitious cleaning spell on Zephyr's wig before kneeling down next to her with it in his hands. "Are you all right?" he asked softly.

She was holding her ankle, eyes glassy, shaken. "Oh! You're—" 

"Harry," he smiled gently. "I met you when Sol brought me to your bar." He handed her the wig, and she took it with trembling hands. "May I take a look at that ankle?"

"I—I think it's sprained." But she straightened it so he had a clear view. It did look a little puffy at the joint, the skin beginning to redden. Healing spells had never been his forte, especially wandlessly and wordlessly, but he did his best.

"I think it'll be all right if you don't put too much pressure on it." He helped her to a nearby bus bench at her request and went back for her handbag, picking up her scattered belongings and casting _reparo_ on a small cracked mirror. 

She had finished fixing her hair by the time he returned, and immediately looked more self-possessed and present, no longer wholly hidden away in herself. He handed her the bag and sat down next to her.

"Thank you. It was very kind of you to intervene. Not many people would have done the same," she said, her voice still quivering a little, though she squeezed his hand warmly in gratitude.

Harry nodded. "Sometimes, even when people want to, they don't know how. It comes easier with training."

Zephyr tilted her head, her dark-chocolate eyes wide with surprise. "You're a police officer, then?"

"No, though I have worked with Mug—with Metropolitan police in the past."

"You don't really look the type." At Harry's questioning gaze, she clarified, "Less standoff-ish. Not like you're putting everyone you meet into categories of criminal intent or behavior."

"That's not a good way to live." Though there were certainly Aurors he could name who were exactly like that. 

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to inveigh against anyone. It's just that my experience with law enforcement has taught me to be cautious. 'Protection' often seems to be the last thing on their minds."

"I'm sorry," Harry sighed. "I wish it were otherwise."

Zephyr regarded him curiously. "You know, from the way Sol talked about you, I assumed you were someone from their cult." 

"Cult?" Harry choked.

"Well, Sol has never called it that—they're very secretive about it. When I met Sol, they didn't know how to use a light switch, had never watched telly, thought automatic doors were magic, and knew almost nothing about Maths. It was obvious they'd been very isolated, and yet were heart-broken at losing that world, even if they felt they'd never belonged. I thought it must have been something like a fundamentalist Mormon sect, with their intolerance and anachronisms, until I met you."

"It's a big—cult," Harry muttered.

Zephyr smiled. "I'm glad it has people like you. Honestly, I'd wondered why Sol seemed so attached to it, when it regarded them as invisible."

Harry sighed and leaned forward. "We have our problems, I won't deny it. I'm worried about Sol, and I'd like to help if I can. Can I ask if you've seen them lately?"

Zephyr shook her head. "Not since the night they brought you to the bar."

"Oh." Harry gnawed at his lower lip. "I last saw them at a warehouse in Wandsworth. Do you know the place?"

"Not the exact place, but I can guess," Zephyr clasped her hands together in distress.

"I've been back several times since, but..." he trailed off helplessly. "Is there anywhere else you think they might have gone?"

Zephyr was silent for a minute before taking a deep breath, as if making up her mind about something. "When Sol first came to the shelter, they became friends with a young man, Andy Lok. I always suspected that he was the one who introduced Sol to drugs. We had to kick him out when we caught him dealing to the other residents. I once overheard him mention the area around King's Cross as a favorite haunt of his. Maybe you'll be able to find Andy there, and he could tell you more. I'm sorry, it's not much..."

"No, it's fine. Thank you," Harry reassured her.

"Here..." Zephyr dug into her handbag for her wallet and opened it to pull out a set of folded plastic sleeves full of pictures. She looked through them before pointing out a young dark-haired Asian man smiling at the camera with one arm wrapped around the waist of a blonde woman with her hair in a ponytail. "That's Andy with his girlfriend Christina Wainwright."

"May I?" Harry accepted the pictures with care, smiling to imagine Zephyr with a smartphone in a few years' time taking endless photos of everything around her, from bunny-shaped clouds to dandelions poking out of a crack in the sidewalk, from selfies with her fans to group pictures with her kids.

He studied the picture of Andy and Christina carefully before his gaze drifted to the next, a candid shot of a group of children at dinner. Sol was in this one, looking several years younger, gesturing animatedly with a bread stick as if they were about to engage in a sword-duel with the enormous turkey in front of them. Several younger kids stared at them spellbound. An inscription labeled the picture "Christmas, 1992."

"Sol loved stories about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table," Zephyr explained, "and would tell them to the other children. Though usually not at dinner!"

Harry chuckled and carefully handed the stack of pictures back, but not before his eyes caught the one at the very top, striking because it had been taken in black-and-white and was creased with much handling. It was also labeled, but in a flowing script that Harry couldn't read without a translation spell. In it a man in a loose white long-sleeved shirt wearing a keffiyeh stood with a woman in a long thawb and hajib beneath a tree with dark oblong leaves and tiny pale flowers. Though they were both unsmiling, their affection was obvious in the softness of their expressions.

"My parents," Zephyr confirmed for him, accepting the photos back from Harry. "Their families were olive and citrus farmers in a village called al-Sumayriyya." She had inherited her mother's oval face and large dark eyes and her father's wide lips and squarish chin.

At Harry's curious look she added, "They were forced to flee during the _Nakba_ —the catastrophe of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. My parents met in a refugee camp in the Jordan Valley. My aunt and her English husband took them in." She touched the photo sadly. "They were very kind, but my parents always missed their homeland. As a child my strongest impression of my father was of a powerful melancholy and longing, as if for a missing piece of himself. I was happy here, but I could sense that they were not. When I was thirteen, there was another war, and they decided that they could no longer stand and watch on the sidelines. This picture is the last I have of them."

Zephyr folded the photos back into her wallet, which she tucked away into her handbag. "It's an odd thing... My parents called me their Little Prince—they were so proud of their son. I think perhaps they would be less proud of their daughter. Yet I can't help but think that were I not their daughter, I would never have truly understood their overriding need for a place to belong."

Harry gently squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back. They quietly sat together until the bus arrived.

Harry was categorically bad at undercover work. It wasn't that he had no acting skills, precisely (all right, fine: he had no acting skills), but he found that the closer he got to someone, the less he wanted to lie to them. 

At least now, when the rail-thin woman of about twenty-five with the viper tattoo curling around her neck asked him if he worked for law enforcement, he could honestly say that he did not.

"I don't believe you," she declared, giving him a hard glare. "You think we don't notice when all you suits come sniffing around? You stand out worse'n a stoned parrot pecking for worms with sparrows."

Harry looked down at himself. He was wearing an old black t-shirt with "welcome to Newport" on it, paired with faded jeans strategically ripped at the knees. He sighed. "I'm just looking for a friend of mine. Someone told me to ask for Andy Lok."

The woman paused. Her gaze followed a cherry-red open-top Benz as it rounded the corner. Two young men sat up front, a third in the back. She sauntered up to it as it slowed. Harry couldn't hear the exchange, but it ended with a ritualistic "Whore!" from the car and "Homo!" from the woman.

She took a drag from her cigarette as she returned to her spot beneath the awning of a closed tattoo parlor. "I know where Andy is," she said, tossing away the butt. "But it'll cost ya."

"How much?"

"Fifty quid."

Harry handed her five tenners without argument. She tucked it away and kept her hand in her pocket. "Andy and his girl are six feet under, over at Highgate Cemetery."

"How do you know?" Harry asked carefully, keeping his hands in plain sight in front of him.

"He was at a strip club when he got taken away. It was where I worked, before they told me I was too old." She spat on the ground. "They were old Saffron's lackeys. Guess the new King didn't need their services anymore."

Harry exhaled. "Thank you. These 'suits' you mentioned—can you tell me what they look like?" 

She shrugged. "I've only see the one. He was real tall. Blond. Going around asking questions like he was bullet-proof. He was holding this long stick the whole time, like a baton, but too slim to hit anything without snapping—dunno what that was all about."

"Any idea what he was asking about?"

"From what I could make out, he was looking for a 'friend,' too," the woman smirked.

Selwyn...? The Wizarding world didn't lack for tall blond wizards (or those who liked putting on the guise of one for a few hours), but a tall blond wizard searching for someone here? Had his father-in-law sent him? Or was he here of his own volition? Was he looking for Sol to help them, or to harm them?

He'd come to another dead end, and this one more grimly final than he'd been prepared for. He thought of Sol lost among the multitudes in derelict buildings, parks, backrooms, street corners, and other hidden places where the desperate and forgotten of society wandered. It was a world he didn't really understand—and perhaps, truthfully, didn't want to understand. Didn't want to know that there were people for whom the world was too broken and too painful to live in, too hopeless to fight for, too lonely to hold any possibility of home. 

He suddenly wanted, quite desperately, to see Snape. Snape, who had fought his war all alone, who had won his victories without allies, without hope of understanding, without even the breath to speak his truths. Snape, who had shifted restlessly on Harry's conjured cot that night, long limbs flung all about as if reaching for something, for hour after hour until Harry had finally made a conjecture and resettled the cot next to the wall. That was when he had finally quieted into deep sleep, back pressed firmly against stone as if it might keep him from falling off the edge of his dreams.

The faintest of pops from the cloakroom announced Potter's arrival. Severus had begun to leave the door open when he was alone, as Potter had taken to visiting with disconcerting frequency. Apparently the Plan necessitated an inordinate amount of hovering. At least he was making himself useful, when he wasn't nagging Severus about sleep.

It was obvious from Potter's expression that he'd fared no better today in his search for Yaxley's nephew, and Severus felt an unwelcome pang at the darkening circles under Potter's eyes. To consider the contrast between the Potter he had known a bare four months ago and the one who stood before him today was to acknowledge the full weight of responsibility that Potter willingly bore on his shoulders. To be honest, Severus had no idea how Potter was able to sleep without magical aids. Severus himself was back to battling brutal insomnia now that he was no longer tempted to take micro-naps at his desk and his sleep patterns were back to 'normal.'

"Here," Severus responded abruptly to Potter's greeting, placing a small bottle of a thick grayish potion on Potter's side of the desk.

Potter picked it up and held it to eye level curiously. "What is it?"

Severus swallowed past the welling bitterness, half-regretting the impulse that had propelled him to make it. That now forced him to explain himself to Potter. "It has no name," he answered, clipped. "It is a potion of my own invention. I made for my father, foolishly believing that it could cure him of his alcoholism. It did not, and could not. Addiction is incurable. What it does do is condense the period of physical withdrawal to days rather than months. It is a shortcut, in other words, but all the more painful for that. It cannot be taken with any other potions or Muggle drugs. That particular bottle is adapted for opioids."

Potter exhaled softly. "Thank you. Snape—thank you. I can't imagine the associations to have been pleasant."

"It—" No. He could think of few things more abhorrent than speaking of his father to Potter, of all people. "It was not," he said shortly. And then, feeling obscurely guilty as Potter's eyes fell, he added, "He was a hard man. A man's man. Living a life of—disappointment. He wanted a son who could scrap with the boys. Whom he could take to football and rugby games. Instead, he got—" _My son is no Nancy boy. Do you hear me?! I'd rather have a dead son than a shirt lifter!_

The look of compassion on Potter's face was unbearable. And unwarranted. Because whatever idea Potter had gotten into that illogical morass of a mind, it was _wrong_. 

"Snape—" he began softly, in a tone that was even more unbearable than the look.

 _How we go about conceiving a society that rewards fairness and has fail-safes that will carry the most powerless and voiceless of us in the times our reason and compassion founder._ How could—how could anyone believe in such banal, bald-faced fantasy? His father and the Dark Lord had had nothing in common except bigotry. The human race reveled in its differences, not its similarities. That was what moved the world: the impetus driving apart _us_ and _them_. No human society on Earth 'rewarded fairness' because even if such a society could be created, it would take only one selfish arsehole exploiting the rest for his own gain to destroy it. And humans were nothing but selfish, Muggles and Wizardkind alike.

"Potter," Severus changed course, "a word of advice. If you do not wish to alienate your allies, you must be more discreet about your...friendship with Sol."

Potter raised his eyebrows. "Any particular reason?" he asked quietly.

Was he really going to make Severus say it? "You know the reason," Severus gave him a warning glare.

"You know, I made it through Auror training with a single demerit," Potter said, apropos of nothing. "I was supposed to be infiltrating a Snidget-smuggling ring. It was all a set-up, of course, but I didn't know that. I got to be friends with one of the 'marks' and tried to warn her away. When that didn't work, I revealed my identity to her."

"Imagine my surprise," Severus muttered.

Potter smiled briefly. "Yeah. Hopeless. That's one privilege the Wizarding world's given me: I've never needed to hide away a part of myself in order to survive. What kind of friend would I be if I forced Sol into the closet? If I were going to do that, they'd be better off in the Muggle world."

"Have you forgotten you're fighting a war?" Severus said, exasperated.

"Am I really gonna lose this war just because I'm friends with someone who's gender-queer and non-straight? How much do I need allies who aren't going to act like it, anyway?"

"That is a ridiculously naive view. Are you willing to risk those who have remained neutral turning to the Dark Lord because of a matter of principle? Because I guarantee you that many will. Even some of those who now stand with you may turn against you."

"It can never be just a matter of principle—that's like saying the fight against Lord Thingy is a matter of principle. If people turn to him because their bigotry overrides every other good that resides in them, then at least they'll have to acknowledge to themselves which side they really stand on. Because you know as well as I do that willingly maintaining the status quo when people are being locked away and murdered is already picking a side."

"When people stand up against you, call you unnatural, perverted, and a danger to society, what will you do then?"

"Laugh, probably," Potter snorted. "I mean, have people _seen_ Lord Thingy?"

"Yet there are those who would point to you as the greater danger. A corrupting influence. A destroyer of our values. And the vast majority of our society would agree."

"Maybe," Potter conceded quietly. "But we can't always depend on Muggle society to pull us along willy-nilly into acceptance of our own people. We're decades behind in the fight for equality at this point. People refuse to even acknowledge that Dumbledore was gay, when it should just be accepted as another part of who he was. So if my fame forces people to finally see those we've forced into invisibility, then at least it would've been good for something."

Severus suddenly realized that this was an argument he could not win. Moody would have a better chance of talking some sense into Potter—perhaps even Lupin. But in himself there was a long-forgotten little boy who'd once asked his father (half defiantly, half fearfully, though he couldn't recall the occasion) why being a 'poofter' or 'ponce' or 'lezzie' or 'dyke' or any of a dozen derogatory terms he'd heard from his earliest childhood in the rough working-class streets he'd grown up in was _bad_. If anyone had had the courage to tell him that it was the world around him that was wrong, that must change, who would Severus be now?

He exhaled, abruptly terrified of Potter's allure as visionary and martyr. He was dredging up shadowed urges and half-glimpsed yearnings from the wasteland of Severus' past that Severus had thought long vanquished, razed to bedrock by the cataclysmic force of his love for Lily. 

"You're going to crack apart the Wizarding world like an egg," Severus growled, feeling as if the ground beneath him had turned to quicksand. It was no kind of rejoinder, of course, but a concession: an admission that he could not take his argument any further lest he be forced to acknowledge that it was no longer abstract.

"Well, now I'm craving egg-drop soup. How 'bout I get us take-out?" Potter grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Transphobia/transphobic language & violence
>   * Homophobia/ingrained homophobia/homophobic language
>   * References to prostitution
>   * References to drug use and dealing
> 



	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tonks and Harry meet the General of the Resistance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, there's a 'Banter' tag! I think I've earned that one, don't you?
> 
> As always: thank you, dear lovely readers, for your kudos and comments (even when you ask the difficult questions!) ♥

It was amazing, Dora thought, studying Harry out of the corners of her eyes, how walking next to him felt just like walking next to another Auror. He had the stance, the stride, the carriage, even the calm confidence their training was supposed to instill in them. Mad-Eye had ordered them to watch each other's backs, and though she didn't quite understand it, she was somehow confident in Harry's ability to do so.

Of course, Mad-Eye had also ordered Harry to stay back, let her do the talking, and not to engage under any circumstance. "You're there to _identify and report_ , understood?" he'd growled, and both she and Harry had nodded solemnly. Apparently unsatisfied with the sincerity of their response, he'd spent the next half-hour driving home the point that they were not to interfere with another team's operation, and another half-hour after that privately instructing her not to let Harry out of her sight.

It was as if Mad-Eye expected Harry to do something rash as soon as her back was turned, when she knew he had a perfectly good head on his shoulders.

He caught her look and smiled at her, and she smiled back. "Thanks again for the Wolfsbane, Harry," she said softly, feeling light for the first time in months as bright leaves of amber and crimson trailed to the ground all around them. "Remus says he knows only one other Potions master who's capable of making something of this quality. He didn't even feel sick this morning."

"I'm glad," Harry replied. 

"Who goes there?" a voice interrupted their quiet conversation. "Stop in the name of the Resistance and identify yourselves!"

Dora squinted up into the multi-hued canopy. "Stop playing around, Foster, or I'll shoot you out of that tree!" she mock-threatened.

"Geez, you're no fun anymore, Tonks," Foster complained as he swung down, freckles dotting a round sun-burned face beneath dark brown hair. He held out his hand to Harry. "Patrick Foster."

"Harry Potter," Harry answered as he shook Foster's hand. They'd decided that since they were here to rendezvous with a group of ex-Aurors, it would be best for Harry to come as himself rather than risk being exposed impersonating someone else. "Moody said you're expecting us."

"Raid's setting up as we speak," Foster confirmed cheerfully as he led the way deeper into the woods. 

"How did you know they're the ones who murdered Mundungus Fletcher, by the way?" Harry asked.

"Overheard 'em talking about it. 'Took out Dumbledore's thief at the Leaky Cauldron' and all."

"That's pretty conclusive, I guess. What're we up against?"

"Three Death Eaters, 'bout a dozen Snatchers. But you don't have to worry none, Potter. General McLaggen's got it covered. We'll take care of it."

"General McLaggen?"

"Best Auror since Mad-Eye Moody himself," Foster proclaimed proudly. "He's gonna lead us to victory against You-Know-Who! We'll have the Ministry back by Christmas, he says."

"Conan McLaggen," Dora supplied at Harry's questioning look. "People do call him 'the best Auror since Mad-Eye.' Gets his pick of assignments and teams. You probably know his cousin."

"But you have reservations about working with him?" Harry asked in a low tone.

"Not reservations, _per se_ ," Dora tried to answer diplomatically. "It's just that he has a very set notion of the roles women are supposed to play, and none of them suit me."

"Hmm," Harry made an interesting face, but he had no time to respond, because they were already within hailing distance of McLaggen and the five young men of his team, not including Foster.

"Hey hey hey, it's Mad-Eye's protégé, Nymphadora Tonks herself! How've ya been, Nymph?" McLaggen came up to her in three long strides, reddish curls burnished copper by the sun and blue eyes sparkling. There were rumors that Seraphina Hamilton, the up-and-coming young singing sensation from across the Pond, had written her song, "Bewitching Blue-eyed Boy," for McLaggen (a rumor he refused to confirm or deny).

Dora took a step back so McLaggen was no longer looming over her. "It's Tonks."

"Right, right. Oh yeah, heard you got married. It's not 'Lupin' now?"

"Still Tonks," she responded steadily.

"Didn't take his name, then? Probably smart, won't do a lot of good for your career to constantly remind people that you're married to a werewolf. But you could always take me up on my offer. I take care of my crew, and I've heard good things about you. I'd love to put Mad-Eye's protégé through her paces." He winked, and Dora barely managed to keep her face neutral.

"Harry Potter," Harry interrupted from next to her, sticking his hand out at McLaggen. "You are?"

"Conan McLaggen. Just call me General," he shook Harry's hand perfunctorily. "Heard you and my cousin got into a bit of a tiff on the Quidditch field. You shoulda given him another chance; he would've shown you that we McLaggens really get going when the going gets tough."

"Sure, General. Just call me the Chosen One," Harry responded in a snooty voice she had never heard from him before, and she almost snorted out a laugh. "Fortunately when the going got tough we had Ron Weasley to take us to victory."

McLaggen gave her a look like "Get a load of this kid." When she didn't react he frowned and said curtly, "We're moving out in ten. Don't come too close; we'll signal you when it's safe to approach. Once you positively identify the murderer, you can go home and give Moody your report, and we'll take care of the rest."

Once McLaggen had left, Dora looked at Harry and said softly, "You didn't need to do that."

He shrugged. "You have better uses for your time and energy."

"Don't worry, I'm used to it."

"You shouldn't have to be," Harry murmured.

She appreciated the thought, she really did. But she had always taken the pragmatic view, to deal with what _was_ instead of what _should be_. (And what _was_ was that there would always be people who wanted to "put her through her paces," who decided that because she could so easily change shape she was obligated to take the shape of their desires whatever her own might be.)

McLaggen had gathered his men in a half-circle, somehow standing precisely in the center of a beam of sunlight so that he was spotlighted in a dramatic cascade of gold. "Gentlemen!" he called out, voice strong and sure. "These past few weeks we have lost our colleagues, our friends, our homes. We have seen justice toppled and chaos set loose upon the world. We have run with our tails tucked between our legs. We have retreated again and again and hid whimpering from the Darkness."

There were mutters and growls as McLaggen paused.

"On this day I declare: no more! So long as we have life, freedom, and our pride, we will fight to turn the tide. Here and now I make this solemn vow: that the Light shall drive back the Dark once more! History has its eyes on us, and this is our chance to become such heroes as the bards write of, to join those who sit in glory at King Arthur's own table! It's time for us to take the fight to these monsters. Are you with me?!"

"Aye!" the men around him cheered in one voice, and Dora could not help but be moved by the rousing speech. She glanced at Harry, but his face was perfectly, uncharacteristically blank.

McLaggen led his crew further into the woods, and she and Harry followed. The trees thinned at the edge of a wide overgrown lawn bordering an old manor house, its blocky appearance indicating that it had originally been designed as a barn. Even from this distance she could see that it was unkempt and possibly structurally unsound: scraggly half-dead vines crawled over most of the windows, the ground upon which it was built tilted noticeably along an east-west axis, and its roof appeared to be in danger of sliding right off. She could hear Muggle cars speeding past from the other side, quite close; apparently its backside abutted a highway.

A lone wiry figure, the last of McLaggen's men, slipped out of the shadows of a tall evergreen to report. After a minute's conference McLaggen looked back at them and ordered, "Stay here. Foster, stay with them."

Foster, who'd only made full Auror less than a year ago, looked disappointed but said nothing more than, "Yes, General." The rest of the Aurors cast Disillusionments on themselves and slid noiselessly out of the trees towards the house.

"Foster, what're you going to do with the Death Eaters and Snatchers afterwards?" Harry asked.

"Afterwards?" Foster looked puzzled. "After what?"

"After the battle. After you've won, I assume."

"The General says we're gonna send them packing with their tails tucked between their legs."

"So you're going to let them go, then?"

"I didn't mean _literally_ packing!"

"What did you literally mean, then?"

Foster scratched his head. "We never really talked about it. But they're monsters, right? And we're fighting a war. Who cares what happens to them, as long as we win?"

Off in the distance, the black-painted front door and several windows blasted inwards in clouds of splintered wood and glass. Harry took off running.

"Harry!" Dora followed, spitting a truncated curse.

"Hey! Come back!" Foster shouted belatedly behind them.

As she drew closer the confusion of noise separated into distinct sounds: shouts of "Throw down your wand!" and "Hands where I can see them!" and "Down on the ground, now!"; roars of rage; screams of fear and pain; crashes and explosions and blasts. Ahead of her Harry plunged straight into the dark maw of the front entrance, the jagged remnants of the door swinging slightly on their hinges as he passed. Dora threw up a shield and went in after him. 

The air inside was thick with dust and acrid with an already-extinguished fire. The Aurors had dismissed their Disillusionments after the first surprise charge so that they would not hit each other by mistake. There were already five or six Snatchers lying unmoving on the ground, stunned or petrified. Several of them were bleeding sluggishly into the hideous faded orange carpet.

"Harry!" she shouted again, and he finally stopped and turned toward her, his wand in his hand.

"I need to find McLaggen!" he cried.

"It's too dangerous! We need to get out of here!"

Something blasted into her shield, making her stagger. She had no idea whether it had come from friend or foe. Harry was back at her side at once. He touched her hand, eyes intent on her face, and she felt his shield layering over hers. She reached out instinctively to mesh them together as Aurors did, only realizing after the merge was complete that there was no possible way Harry should know how to do this. As she stared at him in shock, he asked, "Do you want to wait outside? I'll be all right on my own."

She believed him. But she still shook her head and decided, "I'll help you look."

There were four Aurors in the sitting room, but none were McLaggen. The kitchen and back room were empty. They went up the narrow steps, crouched low to avoid stray bursts of spellfire. 

The first floor landing faced a long corridor opening into four bedrooms, two on each side. Three of the bedrooms were quiet, while sounds of fighting came from the last. 

"Don't hurt him!"

"Geroff!"

"Trevor, run!"

"McLaggen!" Harry shouted, "tell your men to use non-lethal spells! Do you hear me? Tell—"

The door to the last bedroom blew outward, and a young man—fair-haired, tawny-eyed, average height and weight, wearing dark robes—crashed through and barreled down the hall straight towards them. Behind him, an unseen voice intoned, " _Avada_ —" Dora shoved Harry sideways into the closest bedroom. "— _kedavra_!"

The man's legs crumbled beneath him, pitching him into a sprawl right in front of the door. He lay face-down, his wand rolling away from loose fingers, unmoving.

Harry's breath punched out of him in a harsh exhale as Dora swore. They regained their feet as another young male voice wailed, "You killed him!"

"Shut up, Death Eater scum! He deserved what he got!"

"Abraham was never a Death Eater!"

"McLaggen, stop!" Harry roared, leaping over the body toward the last bedroom. Dora got there in time to see McLaggen pointing his wand at another young man just as he flung himself at the window. 

"Avada—"

"Expelliarmus!"

McLaggen hit the wall with a thud as his wand smacked into Harry's hand. Trevor crashed through and disappeared from view. She and Harry both ran to the window. Trevor landed on the brown lawn outside in a shower of glass and lay still for a moment before picking himself up slowly and limping toward the yellow-striped asphalt of the highway. Something moved at the side of the house. A hex or curse scattered into purple sparks around a blue-edged shield surrounding the injured young man. Trevor hobbled across the highway to the screech of tires and horns of irate drivers. He gained a thin copse of trees on the other side and vanished from view.

"You—!" McLaggen lunged at Harry, who swung around to point both wands directly at McLaggen's face.

"Don't." Harry's voice was cold as ice.

McLaggen stopped. "Do you know what you're doing, boy?" he growled in impotent rage.

"Oh, let's see. Maybe stopping you from killing someone else in cold blood?" Harry jerked his head, and McLaggen backed out of the room step by step.

"We're fighting a war!"

"A war where you're supposedly earning a seat at King Arthur's dinner table by shooting people in the back?"

"He was a Death Eater," McLaggen gritted out, over-enunciating each word as if he were speaking to someone who had suffered a Brain-Shrinking Curse.

They were out in the corridor now, where Foster stood blankly at the landing with his wand clutched in a white-knuckled grip. He raised it slowly as they came into view, face ashen. "What are you doing?!" he cried, voice shrill.

"Foster, take them d—" McLaggen shouted.

Dora disarmed and petrified him.

"Death Eaters deserve a proper trial, just like everyone else," Harry retorted.

"You have no idea what it's like to put your life on the line every damned day to fight dark wizards," McLaggen growled, "to put one away only to have another pop up in his place."

"If that's what you think being an Auror is, you shouldn't be one at all. You can't properly protect people while resenting them," Harry rejoined ruthlessly. He pointed at Abraham's corpse. "Pull back his left sleeve."

McLaggen did so and turned his arm over, revealing a snake writhing out of the open jaw of a skull. He and Dora both stared. The skull was highly stylized, the snake a brilliant green with curved fangs and a pink forked tongue. 

It was an ordinary tattoo.

McLaggen stood, looking shaken. "The Snatchers said..."

Harry tossed his wand at his feet. "This is not a war you can win, McLaggen. You-Know-Who can crush you without even lifting his wand. There's only one victory worth fighting for, and that's saving as many people as you can. That's how you earn a seat in the Hall of Heroes."

Harry gazed at Moody stomping around and around the drawing room, wooden leg striking hollowly against oak boards. He was perched on the piano bench with his chin propped up in both hands, absently wondering how Snape was getting on without him. Would Snape give him a room in the castle if he asked? Moody looked like he was building up the steam to boot Harry out of his own house.

"Potter, we can't afford to alienate our allies!" Moody finally growled. "We need McLaggen—not to mention his family—on our side!"

"Excuse me, McLaggen's family? The ones cowering in their private offices at the Ministry, silent and useless as salamanders in a frozen pond? What we can't afford," Harry returned fiercely, "are battles of escalating violence. We all lose in a war of attrition. All McLaggen is doing is radicalizing the other side. He should pray he never actually draws the attention of Lord Thingy, or he'll get a hero's glorious funeral."

"People die in wars, Potter, and I'd rather it be them than us."

"People die in the heat of battle, yes. McLaggen executed someone trying to run away from him."

"Was he the one who killed Mundungus?"

 _Mold and ground glass._ "Yes."

Moody threw up a hand.

"But McLaggen didn't know that, not for sure," Tonks spoke from the chair next to the fireplace. 

Moody glared at her, and she shrugged. 

"Moody, the more vicious this war becomes, the deeper the wounds it'll inflict on everyone, and the harder it'll be for us to rebuild afterwards. We have to keep it as nonlethal as we can."

"How do you want to proceed, then?" he asked Harry.

"Let it be known that we'll only provide support to rescue operations. And that we will actively oppose extra-judicial killings. Or if you can't do that, that _I_ actively oppose extra-judicial killings."

"Fine. In the meantime, you are suspended indefinitely from all Order operations."

Harry found Andromeda and Luna on the roof, weeding a long row of ceramic pots by hand and chatting about herbs. He hovered uncertainly for a second before Luna stood and smiled brightly at him. "Hello, Harry. You can take my place; I see the Wrackspurts have gotten to you again. Don't worry, sunlight and plants are a great way of drawing them out." Then she skipped past him and down the stairs.

"Uh, thanks, Luna. Sorry to interrupt," Harry apologized to Andromeda as he took Luna's stool, "but I was wondering if you could tell me anything about Therios Selwyn?"

Andromeda hummed. "Therios Selwyn," she repeated thoughtfully. "I met him once when he was just a boy. It was pretty clear what House he would be sorted into. I remember his father favored him over his older brother Iacchus even then."

"So he didn't get along with his brother, then?" Harry inquired curiously.

"Sibling accord is difficult to achieve when your parents are actively playing you against one another," Andromeda observed, and Harry winced. "Perhaps he merely wished to galvanize his eldest. In any case, Iacchus went the path of the dissolute gambler while Therios became an Unspeakable. Iacchus attempted to mend his fortunes by wooing Artemisia Yaxley, Corban Yaxley's only child, who became heiress to a fortune when her uncle Octavian Yaxley and his Muggle-born wife died. But even there he was bested by his brother: apparently Therios fell in love with Artemisia at the same time, and Artemisia chose him over Iacchus. 

The society pages were atwitter over the whole affair, especially given how rare it is nowadays for two people to marry according to the Old Ways, taking vows which create a magical binding between husband and wife that cannot be broken—the kind used in the distant past to ensure peace between feuding clans. Therios even agreed to Yaxley's demand for their firstborn son be named Yaxley instead of Selwyn. It was an insult to Selwyn House, frankly, and everyone was surprised when Therios went along with it. People speculated that he's either madly in love with Artemisia or that Yaxley had some sort of dire blackmail or hold over Selwyn House."

Harry sat bolt upright, a question that had been hovering in the back of his mind suddenly becoming clear. "Wait a minute... Artemisia's uncle was Octavian Yaxley, the former Head Bean Counter? He had a son, didn't he? A Squib?"

Andromeda paused and looked up as if she had realized something at the same time. "There were rumors, yes."

"But Squibs can't inherit in the Wizarding world. Andromeda, did Corban Yaxley murder his brother?"

"It seems...not unlikely, in hindsight. But everybody thought it an accident then, and there was no investigation."

"No—?!"

"There were countervailing interests, shall we say. Willaby Rowle was in line to become Head Bean Counter, and his family had both the ear of the Minister and that of the Head of the DMLE. He would not have been eager to make his connection to Yaxley known. There were others—many others, I suspect. Did you never wonder how Yaxley managed to retain his position at the DMLE for all those years though it was known he bore the Mark and fought for You-Know-Who during the first war?"

"I thought people didn't know."

"Oh, I can assure you that they did. They just had a vested interest in maintaining—and convincing other people of—his innocence. It was the same for Lucius Malfoy."

Harry growled low in his throat and leaned back on his stool. "I hate politics."

"You hate the corruption of politics for selfish gain," Andromeda corrected him. "But I wonder if you might not benefit from a little more political compromise, such as in the case of Conan McLaggen."

Harry groaned.

"You are a fool," was Snape's succinct pronouncement on the subject when he'd had a chance to recount the story of the morning raid later that day.

They were in the Headmaster's workroom, a large, airy, round space located at the top of the Headmaster's tower. Heavily protected by multiple layers of wards which had withstood sustained bombardment from Voldemort's forces without a scratch in his other timeline, it was actually designed to protect those on the outside from danger originating from within rather than the other way around. Dumbledore had used it for research into original forms of Transfiguration, though he'd been too busy to do so for the last few years of his life. It was the only part of the Headmaster's quarters Snape had claimed for his own use, now transformed into a spacious and meticulously-organized Potions lab.

Harry was seated on a tall stool with two tiny golden keys lying parallel to each other around six inches apart on the empty counter space in front of him. He tapped the one on the right with his wand, and a mellow musical tone sounded from it, echoed a second later by the one on the left. He tapped it again, and it emitted a different tone, followed by its twin. That was pretty much as far as he and Hermione had gotten despite hours of experimentation. Maybe Sol's theremin idea hadn't been so far off after all. Hermione was now going through all the books the Black library contained on goblins and goblin magic, of course.

Harry sighed, "Right, tell me something I don't know. While you're at it, you can tell me how you would've stopped McLaggen without compromising my political position." He watched appreciatively as Snape wended with beguiling confidence around a dozen steaming cauldrons.

"I can tell you five ways that do not require the use of any of the Unforgivable Curses, but I shall require payment."

Harry chuckled. "Payment?"

"Your services as my assistant," Snape nodded at the cauldrons.

"You'd trust me with your potions?" Harry asked, feeling a warm glow expand like effervescent bubbles inside him.

"Not all of them, obviously. But I believe even you can handle Pepper-Up, the Draught of Living Death, and a Burn-Healing Paste. Especially since they'll be used by students, who will have Poppy's expert aid on hand should you succeed in poisoning them."

The bubbles popped, but Harry couldn't help but laugh. "Not the Wideye Potion?" he teased, and snickered at Snape's expected glare. "Fine, then. Let's hear 'em."

"Confound one or more of McLaggen's men and send him up in your place. Or, alternatively, call McLaggen down."

"Hrm."

" _Rennervate_ the Snatchers as a distraction."

"Eh."

"Send Tonks disguised as one of McLaggen's men."

"Yeargh."

"Slip McLaggen a fast-acting mind-altering substance to discredit him in front of his men."

"Gaaaaaah."

" _Obliviate_ McLaggen and implement a false memory."

Harry threw up his hands. "You are polluting my innocent Gryffindor mind!"

"I see you only kept your position as Head of the DMLE for as long as you did due to reputation and charisma."

"Yowch." Harry clutched at his chest dramatically. "It's not _supposed_ to be all political machinations and back-stabbing, you know. Wait. You think I have charisma?"

"Much more the former than the latter," Snape assured with his back to Harry. "I trust your pure unsullied Gryffindor mind can come up with the next steps for the three potions?"

"No sweat," Harry answered confidently. "That's what the Compendium of Potions-Making is fffffffo— _oh crap_." Distracted, he'd completely forgotten that his magically-interfaced implant of potions knowledge was decades in the future of this timeline, if it would ever be invented at all. "Uh...nevermind." He reached into his pouch for his copy of _Advanced Potions-Making_ just as Snape turned around with raised eyebrow.

"You carry that around with you?"

"I forgot to take it out of my pouch is all," Harry muttered, setting it down gently on an empty bench and flipping to 'The Draught of Living Death.' "I've been making Pepper-Up at Grimmauld Place, but it's been an age since I did Burn-Healing Paste. Mind drawing up the instructions for me, O Master of Potions Lore and Politically Expedient Underhanded Tactics?"

Though Snape smirked, he did so without demurral.


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny is a fairytale ~~princess~~ witch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, it's the Ginny POV that nobody asked for. XD
> 
> Please jump to the End Notes for specific warnings for this chapter.

There was no justice in the world. Ginny had come to this dire conclusion at the tender age of sixteen, at the precise moment she had ducked into the Gryffindor common room to see her brother making out with Lavender Brown in a manner that could only be described as 'requiring instant Obliviation.' Here she was, wracking her brain for a way to slip out of Hogwarts and join Harry's Resistance (without getting her parents in trouble, because she was a Good Daughter), while Ron, who'd _had_ a chance to stay, had given it up so that he could spend his time snogging his vapid girlfriend with his hand up her robes.

"Ron, you are disgusting!" she screeched at the top of her lungs as she stormed past them up to her dormitory.

All right, maybe not very nice of her, but it wasn't like he and Lavender were destined for one another, not like herself and Harry. You should've heard the way he'd talked about her over the summer, like she was just a pair of lips over a pair of breasts. Boys were horrible sometimes.

Not her Harry, of course: he was a proper hero. He was noble and good and brave, and he'd never kissed her like _that_ , which just went to show how much he respected her. (Besides, she refused to be jealous of someone like Lavender, who thought about nothing but boys all day.) How lucky she was that her One True Love was the Boy-Who-Lived, whom she had worshiped ever since she'd been a little girl.

Now she just had to get him to remember that fact, before some other witch snatched him away and tied him down and bore him three babies, so that they (she and Harry, that is) spent decades uselessly pining for one another until they were old and wrinkly and couldn't bear to look at each other anymore. That was definitely not how her fairytale was going to end. She knew this because fairytale logic dictated that the clever, beautiful, faithful maiden should win the day over all the pretenders trying to ensnare Harry because they wanted the Boy-Who-Lived instead of the Boy-He-Was.

Ginny was a great believer in fairytale logic, which was so much better than real-life logic. The catch was that fairytale logic required a certain leap of faith, and even so didn't work for everybody: say if you weren't the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, or if your One True Love hadn't saved your life when you were eleven and he was just twelve years old and by so doing bound your destinies together forever.

Right now she was going through her Great Tribulation, the part where her hero forgot she existed because she'd made a Foolish Mistake. (She'd thought she was clever enough to skip over that part, but apparently they weren't all so easy to spot as poisoned apples or pointy spindles—and besides, she wouldn't want those cardboard Prince Charmings anyway.)

"If you didn't really believe he might like boys, why'd you say it?" Cho asked in her trying-to-understand-a-morally-neutral-question sort of way.

This was why she liked talking to Cho: she didn't judge. Ravenclaws were much better conversationalists than Gryffindors in that way. (Also, Cho already had her One True Love, so was in the perfect position to offer advice in a non-threatening manner, even though she was also clever and beautiful and faithful and there was that painful time when Harry had fancied her.)

This was embarrassing, though. "I thought it would spur him to prove his masculinity by—you know, bending me over backwards and snogging me senseless. There was this article in _Teen Witch_..."

"And you think that's necessary, even if you're bound by True Love?" Cho wondered.

"But he was going on a Quest! Just because it's True Love doesn't mean it always ends happily, you know. Just look at Merlin and Nimue. I mean, Harry might die! He might get seduced by a veela who'll bear him three harpy babies, and he'll have to marry her!"

"...Are you sure that happens in real life?" Cho frowned quizzically.

"Of course it does! My brother married a part-veela, they have to come from somewhere!" Ginny declared. 

"But is that really love, if you have to prove yourself over and over again?"

Right, that hadn't been a morally-neutral sort of response, had it? She was about retort when the look on Cho's face stopped her. Oh. Maybe that hadn't been about Harry at all. "If the person you love needs reassurance sometimes, shouldn't you be willing to offer it?"

There was an odd little pause. Then Cho looked at her and smiled. "Of course. Of course you should. Sorry, don't mind me. I'm probably still getting used to all of this. Same time tomorrow?"

Ginny smiled back and nodded. "Thanks for talking with me about this, Cho."

"Well, I'm not really supposed to talk to anybody about...Lightning, but we'll keep it between us, all right?"

Cho said that every time, but Ginny didn't really think Cho was going to report her, even if she was working for the Ministry now. Besides, they were always careful never to call Harry by name in their conversations (though Ginny wanted to giggle every time they talked about 'Lightning' because when she was little she'd wanted a pony, and that was the name she'd picked). 

Neville was waiting outside Cho's office, his expression fixed, his lips pressed tightly together. Neville? Angry? That was new. "'lo, Neville," she said as she passed him, and he nodded at her before heading inside. Actually, what he'd done on the Hogwarts Express had been pretty cool. Why hadn't Ron made this sort of amazing leap over the summer? (Or maybe he had, and Lavender was the only one who could see it? On second thought—ew.)

A few days later Ginny arrived in Cho's office to see a vase with huge sprigs of flutterby on her desk, the fragrant multi-colored flowers flapping slowly like the bright wings of a butterfly. "Wow!" she sniffed appreciatively. "Did Cedric get that for you? Is it a special day or something?"

Cho smiled and touched a vivid orange petal with a pink-flushed tip. "Oh no, nothing like that. It's an apology from Neville for yelling at me the other day."

"Neville yelled at you?" Ginny goggled.

"He was angry on behalf of another student. Sorry, I can't really talk about it," Cho waved a hand apologetically.

"It must be kinda hard, you know, with everything going on..." Ginny ventured.

For a moment Cho looked torn. "I...I'm grateful the Ministry is giving me the opportunity to prove myself," she said slowly, as if repeating a line by rote. Then she added more firmly: "I can handle it." She looked down at her hands folded neatly on the table. "Ginny, I have to ask: did you have anything to do with the message about Dumbledore's Army recruiting?"

"Why do you ask?" Ginny returned, feeling her pulse rise a little.

"Because it's dangerous, Ginny! What do you think the Headmaster will do when he finds out who did it?" 

"I don't know, torture them with _Cruciatus_?" Ginny retorted sarcastically. "Oh wait, isn't Amycus Carrow already 'demonstrating' that on students?"

"Well, he won't be able to anymore, because there were too many letters from concerned parents."

"Oh. That's good. But we still need Dumbledore's Army, don't you see? Someone needs to stand up to these people!"

"Why does it have to be you? You're only sixteen!"

"Harry did, when he was only fifteen!"

"Ginny!"

"Sorry," Ginny said mulishly.

"You have to realize that the situation is completely different now. The Carrows are _Death Eaters_."

"And you're working for a Ministry that's _run_ by Death Eaters!" Ginny yelled, before realizing what she had said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

"Yes you did, and yes I am," Cho replied coolly. "We can't all be the One True Love of the Chosen One."

At least Cho hadn't pointed out that Ginny's own father was working for a Ministry run by Death Eaters. "I'm really really sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

Cho bit her lip. "No, I shouldn't have brought it up. It's just...Ginny, if something happens, I won't be able to help you."

 _Something like this?_ Ginny thought a few days later, heart in her throat as she retreated step by step before three Seventh-Year Slytherin boys, the blank wall of a dead-end corridor looming up behind her.

Snape had responded to the DA's shot across the bow by instituting the Ministry Youths Program, a remake of the Inquisitorial Squad from Ginny's Fourth Year but with the Carrows in charge. They had free rein to harass and bully anyone they caught out of their dormitories, and to report anyone out after curfew. The only difference was that the Prefects and Head Boys and Girls were offered the 'pride' of joining first. Nobody refused, not even Ron.

She kicked him out of the first meeting of the new Dumbledore's Army.

Of course she knew that he'd sort of had to, what with their father being the new Head Bean Counter and all, but still— Still!

It was especially vexing when only four other people showed up for their first meeting: Seamus was the only other Gryffindor, plus Terry Boot, Michael Corner, and Anthony Goldstein from Ravenclaw. When she asked Zacharias Smith, the Hufflepuff Chaser, about it one day, he replied that his fellow Hufflepuffs were shocked at what Neville had said to Professor Alecto Carrow. Sure, Carrow was prejudiced against Muggles, but Neville shouldn't have said _that_. Even if he disagreed with her, he should've at least been polite about it.

Ginny told Smith she was going to politely punt him through a goalpost if he didn't shut it.

Unfortunately, the rest of the school—even her fellow Gryffindors—seemed to agree that Neville had gone too far. Which meant the Ministry Youths technically outnumbered the DA by something like four to one.

Terry, Michael, and Anthony managed to score a point for them by somehow digging up a _Daily Prophet_ article from twenty-five years ago describing a tragic fire which had destroyed the Gage Orphanage in Wales and killed five children. The article's author, Rita Skeeter, had delicately concluded, "Perhaps this tragedy could have been avoided if the orphanage's co-heads, Alecto and Amycus Carrow, had been more intertwined with the daily affairs of the school and less with each other."

The article made the rounds of the school before being incinerated. Sometimes having Ravenclaws on your team was really useful. What Ginny couldn't figure out was why even then most of the student body refused to take a side.

Then Neville got mouthy with Amycus Carrow and topped it off by (so rumor had it) inciting the portrait of Albus Dumbledore to lock Snape out of his office (?) and hold a council of war with all the other portraits (??) to declare Neville the Heir of Gryffindor (?!!), the upshot of which was that even Snape couldn't find a way to expel him. Whenever Ginny tried to bring up the fact that 'mandatory attendance' probably meant Neville _couldn't_ be expelled, people shushed her. It didn't help that Neville himself refused to talk about what had actually happened in the Headmaster's office. (There were other rumors that Snape had pickled Neville's soul in a jar and had sent an Inferius in Neville's place. Ginny decided to dismiss those out of hand.)

On the other hand, the DA got seven more members: the Patil twins, Lavender, Leigh Horwitz with her little brother Alex, Romilda Vane, and Hannah Abbott. She decided not to delve too deeply into why so many girls had suddenly decided to join.

Now the odds were more like two-to-one, though one of them couldn't even cast a _Protego_ (and she didn't mean the thirteen-year-old). Whatever; the influx of new members had cheered the boys up, at least.

The problem was that none of them were real duelists, not like Harry, while one of the Slytherin boys facing them apparently was. His father was head of the Witch Watchers now, and, as Anton Tremblay had just finished explaining to them, had hired a private tutor for his son during the summer. He twirled Neville's wand and leered just like a storybook villain while Neville coughed up a live spider. She patted him on the back gingerly.

This was definitely not how she imagined the first battle of the DA would go. She blocked a stunner from Goyle and a hex from Nott and blinked sweat out of her eyes. Tremblay just watched and smiled. "Tell us you're losers and cowards and we'll let you go."

Neville spat out a bumblebee, which spread its wings in midair and lurched drunkenly away. "I'm a loser and a coward," he gagged.

Ginny gritted her teeth. She'd shot down a Death Eater during the battle at the Burrow that had killed Rufus Scrimgeour, and she was supposed to humiliate herself in front of these clowns?! Her Bat-Bogey Hex caught Goyle square in the face, and he lurched back with both hands covering his nose.

"That wasn't very nice, bitch," Tremblay snarled, the sudden change in tone making her flinch despite herself. 

No! No flinching! She lifted her head and pointed her wand at his sneering mouth. "I'm not here to be _nice_!" 

Nott's _Levicorpus_! yanked her upside-down so abruptly that her wand hit the wall behind her and rolled to his feet. He didn't bother to pick it up. "Oh, neither are we," he sniggered.

"Ginny, just say it," Neville wheezed, a brightly-colored beetle punctuating every word. 

Ginny crossed her arms. They'd already taken out Crabbe and Cotton, a Slytherin Sixth Year, so it wasn't like they'd _really_ lost. Words were just words, even though she felt like she was trying to spit out cockroaches. "I'm a loser and a coward," she muttered.

Nott's spell shook her until her teeth rattled. "I can't hear you," he sing-songed.

"I'm a loser and a coward!" she yelled, feeling her face heat with rage, humiliation, and the blood draining dizzily to her head.

"What'd you think, good enough?" Nott asked Tremblay lazily.

"I don't think she really means it," Tremblay smirked.

"You said you'd let us go!" Neville shouted, and vomited a buzzing stream of bees.

"We changed our minds," Tremblay leered, and put a hand on Ginny's calf. "This one has nice legs. The Weasleys are great breeders, aren't they?"

Mortifyingly, Ginny felt tears start in her eyes. Beside her Neville took a deep breath, coughed out a pair of horseflies, and said quietly, "I call upon the Guardian of Hogwarts to aid me. Mogly goggly yabber jabber fly!"

Everyone paused for a second. "Did you hit him with a Babbling Hex?" Tremblay asked Nott.

Nott shook his head. They both looked back at Goyle, who still had bats flying out of his nose. "Not me," he shrugged.

Everyone looked back at Neville. "I mean," he said with dignity, pausing to spit out a very ruffled moth, "Moogly googgly jabber yabber fly!"

There was another pause. "Mu—" Tremblay began, when a moldy tomato flew into his mouth. 

"Wha—" Nott gaped, and was pelted by a stinking pile of what looked and smelled like fish entrails.

Ginny fell and bounced. Bounced? She grabbed her wand.

Then there was pandemonium.

Wait a minute. Neville actually _was_ the Heir of Gryffindor?!

See above, re: justice (or lack thereof).

"Maybe we should've stuck with 'Abracadabra,'" Harry suggested.

"One should never compromise one's standards by descending to the mediocrity of one's audience," Snape sniffed.

"What, seriously?" Harry snorted.

"So is it true?" Cho asked curiously the next day.

"What?" Ginny tried for casual and ended up sounding like a high-pitched Ron sitting on the common room couch reading _Quidditch Quarterly_ upside-down with his robes on backwards. No, no, bad image, she was supposed to be _not_ thinking about it!

"Did Neville really summon the Most Noble and Ancient Spirit-Blade of Longbottom and use it to turn Theodore Nott into a carp?"

Ginny's mouth dropped open. "Uh..." Where were these lurid stories coming from? Had someone taken up Luna's pen? And where was _she_ in this fishy tale of valor? "What did the Slytherins say?"

"Nott claims that he was nowhere near Gryffindor Tower that day and that the carp story is pure slander. Tremblay insisted that he has no idea who either of you are and wouldn't know you from—I quote—'Merlin himself.'"

Ginny breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, that's okay, then."

"But Ginny, don't you see?" Cho leaned forward earnestly. "They don't want any of the professors involved because they want to take revenge themselves."

"Let them try, then," Ginny tossed back her hair before remembering: "—Not that I know anything about it." She frantically looked around for a distraction. "What happened to the vase of flutterby?"

"Oh," Cho dropped her eyes uncomfortably. "Cedric didn't like it—he said the smell made him feel nauseous, so I had to throw it out."

"That's too bad," Ginny sighed. It had been a beautiful display, better even than the ones her mother had arranged for Bill and Fleur's wedding. You could tell that Neville really had a gift for plants. 

Cho nodded and was silent for a while. Eventually she confided, "Cedric told me he wants us to think about building a family."

"Wow, that's—" Actually, she wasn't quite sure what she wanted to say. "What did you say?"

"I said I needed more time to think it," Cho hesitated. "I don't know, it was just...it felt kind of sudden. Not that I've never thought about it, but..." Cho looked down at her hands clasped together on the table. "I know we've been together for years, and we're going to get married in Spring, but...I feel like...shouldn't we wait a bit? I don't know, it's hard to explain."

Ginny frowned. "Well, it is a big decision. You probably need time to talk it over more. After all, you're the one who'll be doing all the work."

Cho nodded. "It's not like I never want to have children, but...right now? Things are so uncertain..."

"That sounds like a conversation you need to have with Cedric."

"Yeah," Cho said softly, staring at her fingers twisting into bloodless knots.

The thing about running the DA was, it was hard! Harry had made teaching look so easy, but he'd had the actual experience of facing You-Know-Who. Most of the members were Seventh-Years, and they weren't about to listen to _her_. Meanwhile, Neville was about as assertive as her Pygmy Puff, and Ron kept backing his girlfriend into dark corners to do she-didn't-want-to-know-what (didn't he do enough of that in the Gryffindor common room?!)

Consequently DA meetings more resembled social hour than anything else, and she was beyond frustrated. She sidled up to Neville, interrupting his conversation with Hannah Abbott. "Can't you do something about this?"

He looked around. "Everything seems fine to me."

"But nobody's doing anything but talking!"

"Getting to know one another is a good thing," Neville smiled. "See? Even Leigh and Parvati are getting along again."

It was true: the two girls were sitting together, leaning in close, talking and laughing quietly. But she didn't see what that had to do with anything!

"I think we need a quest," she declared.

"A quest?"

"A quest to unite us and temper our spirits!" She'd probably gotten that from some book or another.

"Like what?" he asked uncertainly.

"Like..." she had an absolutely brilliant idea. "We'll retrieve the Sword of Gryffindor!"

"Uh..." he looked blank. "Why?"

"Because you're the Heir of Gryffindor?"

"...Huh?"

"Wait, you're _not_ the Heir of Gryffindor?"

"...Not that I know of?"

Oh, well, since the position was still open... "Let's get it anyway!" She raised her voice. "Anyone know where we can find the Sword of Gryffindor?"

There were blank looks all around. Terry ventured, "Snape probably has it in his office, like Dumbledore did. Why? You're not thinking of stealing it?"

"We wouldn't be stealing it," Ginny reasoned stoutly. "It belongs with us, Dumbledore's Army, not an evil Slytherin. I say we should go on a quest to take it back."

Everybody paled.

"It's a suicide mission," Michael gulped, sounding awed.

"Well, we'll...we'll work up to it," Ginny decided. "We'll need to study and practice hard."

All the Ravenclaws and Hannah nodded.

"But that sounds like so much work!" Lavender pouted. "Can't we just be heroic instead?"

That was when Ginny had her second brilliant idea: she was going to break up Ron and Lavender. The relationship needed to end for the good of everyone, especially innocent bystanders like herself who felt like _scourgify_ ing her brain every time she saw them together, which was constantly. And the benefits didn't just end there: it would force Ron to concentrate his energies on the important things, like the DA and the Resistance and getting together with Hermione, which would eliminate one more threat vector to Harry's affections.

See? Brilliant.

She was late to Cho's office hours the next day, but thought she might just squeeze in to ask Cho if she thought it was possible for someone to be the Heir of Gryffindor without knowing it. The door to the office was closed, though, and she heard the sound of voices coming from inside. Oddly, Cho seemed to have forgotten to put up privacy spells. Oh, nevermind, it was just Cedric. She sat down to wait.

"...just flowers," Cho was saying.

"I told you I don't like them," Cedric responded, sounding annoyed.

"You...the smell...bothered... no scent..." She only heard parts of Cho's reply because it was so quiet.

"Do I have to spell it out for you, Cho? I don't like the fact that it was Longbottom who gave them to you." That was loud and clear.

"Neville?" Cho sounded shocked.

"Why do you think he comes by so often and brings you flowers?"

Neville and Cho, really?

"But it's my job..." Cho protested.

Even if Neville was the Heir of Gryffindor and may or may not have single-handedly inspired seven students to join the DA, Cedric was still really talented and good-looking. Besides, she'd never heard Cho talk about anybody but Cedric.

"Then be professional about it and stop encouraging him," Cedric insisted.

"I...I didn't think I was," Cho hesitated.

"First of all, you really shouldn't accept gifts from a student. You should consider how it looks from the outside. Any appearance of favoritism on your part will reflect badly on the Ministry. Can you blame me for being concerned?"

"You're right, I do see it now," Cho said, dismayed. "I should've been more careful. I'm sorry, Cedric."

"I knew you would," Cedric replied encouragingly. "You're so clever, and I know you want to do your best. I really don't want to upset you," he added gently, "but you should probably stop wearing school colors as well. You know I love you in red, but, well..."

"Oh. I've...I've never thought about it. I'll look over my clothes today and make sure they're okay."

"I think that would be a good idea," Cedric confirmed. "Don't worry, it's just a little slip. I'm sure it's no big deal."

After a moment Cho asked, "Do you have any news? About my mum's status?"

Cedric replied solemnly, "I'll check with my dad again. It's probably too early still—you know these things take time."

"I know, I'm sorry to keep bothering you about it..."

Ginny decided to leave and try again another day. Compared to that one fight her parents had had about Ron's ghoul when they'd thought everybody had been out of the house, with voices so loud she thought they might blow the roof right off, it didn't even qualify as an argument. But there was still something deeply unsettling about it, something she couldn't quite put into words. Something that made her want to blast open that door and curl up and hide under her bed, all at the same time.

She felt so dispirited that she completely failed to summon her Patronus during practice that evening with the DA, and Neville came and sat down next to her to ask, "What's wrong, Ginny?"

She turned to face him. "Do you like Cho, Neville?"

His forehead wrinkled quizzically. "Cho...? Sure, I guess?"

"I mean, _like_ like."

"Uh, why do you ask?"

Ginny shrugged. "I guess, I just want to know. And...you bring her flowers."

"Well, in case you haven't noticed, I do work around flowers a lot," he smiled a little. "And, you know, she looks so sad sometimes, so I thought it might cheer her up. But no, I don't like her like that. I'd never want to do that to anyone. Or to myself."

Huh. That made a lot of sense. And how come she hadn't noticed Cho looking sad?

"I hope you keep talking to her, even if Cedric doesn't like you bringing her flowers," Ginny replied. "If she's sad, she'll need friends to be there for her."

Neville nodded, looking thoughtful, and climbed to his feet. "Come on, we need to get moving if we want to get back to the common room before curfew."

Ginny walked out of the Room of Requirement, turned, looked over her shoulder to tell Neville about what Cedric had said about favoritism, and bumped straight into someone's back. Parvati and Leigh leapt apart from each other and looked back at them, blushing. Ginny felt her face beginning to heat as well as she realized what they'd been doing.

She opened her mouth without any idea in the world what to say, when a cold voice rooted them all to the spot with horror: "I will not tolerate such flagrant disregard for decency and self-respect in my school. Ms. Patil, Ms. Horwitz, you will serve—"

"I call upon—" Neville quavered, and Ginny's eyes widened. Was Neville really declaring war against the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Severus Snape himself?!

But before either of them could finish speaking, a whoosh of wind barreled straight into Snape and bore him toward the wall, where a door opened and swallowed him whole before disappearing again.

"Neville...did you just ask Hogwarts to _eat_ Snape?!" Ginny goggled. And where was the DA supposed to meet now?!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Emotional/Psychological Abuse
> 



	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duel!

Snape had drawn his wand. 

Harry had not drawn his, but he was furious.

"How dare you undermine my authority as Headmaster of this school?" Snape spat.

"Your authority? Oh, you mean the position that Dumbledore entrusted to you, which you have just _abused_ by bullying two young witches?" Harry fired right back.

"It is not for you to say how I run this school."

"Why don't you try and stop me from saying it, then?"

"Do not tempt me, Potter." Harry could almost see the fiercely-leased power crackling off of the other wizard.

He flicked his wrist, and his wand dropped into his hand. "Go ahead, Snape. No need to hold back when I'm no longer your student, is there? Or are you too scared now that I know how to fight back?" he goaded.

He felt all his senses heightened, every iota of him concentrated on this one moment, acutely and exhilaratingly alive. The fine hairs at the back of his neck and arms were rising, and he had to consciously even out his breaths against the pressure and intensity of Snape's magic gathering like the roiling spissatus clouds of a thunderstorm right in front of him.

A bolt of vicious flame smashed into the wall next to his head, leaving the stones blackened and sizzling. There was no finesse to it; it had been a release of raw power. He felt a rush of satisfaction as he retaliated with a howling miniature hurricane that whipped Snape's hair into his eyes and drove him back three feet. Snape slashed it to pieces and turned the floor beneath him to ice. Harry sprang backwards to avoid the upward thrust of ice crystals and sent thunder crashing down the other end of the formal dueling hall the Room of Requirement had obligingly conjured for them.

In the ringing silence (not to mention ringing in both their ears) that followed, Harry asseverated, "You of all people should know how badly we're damaged by that kind of cruelty."

"I of all people?" Snape repeated softly, but with a hissing undertone of danger.

"You." Harry held his wand to the side, ready and waiting. "You know how it feels to be in their shoes."

"I have no idea what you're implying," Snape growled, a blasting curse crashing into Harry's shield with such force that he could feel his bones rattle.

"I think you do. Other people might be able to hide from themselves, but not you. Have you ever asked yourself whether you would've been truly happy if Lily Evans had loved you in the same way she loved my father?"

"You have no right—"

"As you have no right to judge these girls. Cruelty like that cuts soul-deep."

"You have known what cruelties I am capable of since you were eleven years old. And you accuse me of being disingenuous?"

"Not like this. Not the kind that shames people for who they are and who they love. That, I've never heard from you before. When you bullied my friends and me, before, at least it was for a purpose."

"It is all the same."

"It is not the same, and I don't think you believe that it is either."

"They will learn soon enough, out there." Snape flicked his wand, and Harry whirled to evade the _sectus_ hex he threw. A corner of his robes was slashed to tatters. Snape hissed, not quite quick enough to block the Stinging Hex Harry flung back at the same time.

"They don't have to learn it here. Let them at least have that much, while we can still protect them. While we're supposed to be protecting them."

"Nothing can protect them from what's out there. It's everywhere. What will happen when they have to face the full reality of society's prejudices? They'll be defenseless."

"Do you really think children are as innocent as all that? I'll bet you heard all the homophobic slurs before you ever got to Hogwarts, and so did I, and so have they. That doesn't mean surrendering to fear is the right way to go."

"You sanctimonious little prick. The Dark Lord—"

Harry ducked as malevolent little glowing discs sailed over his head and crashed into the wall with puffs of mortar and chips of stone. He threw back a couple of fireballs in retaliation.

"Name-calling's not gonna get you anywhere, Snape. Lord Thingy is an aberration. If we act as if we're living in the kind of society he would build, then we've already lost!"

"These romantic notions of a fair society are fantasies," Snape bit out. "How would you know what it's like, you with your socially-approved wife, glorious career, and perfect family? If you've seen what I've seen—"

Harry stumbled into the path of a shimmering lance of pure energy that hit him in the stomach like a bludger as Snape's derision landed hard—harder perhaps than even he meant it. Harry doubled over, gasping. "I have seen what you've seen—bits and pieces, at least," he coughed. "Remember? I know what the neighborhood kids called you. How they bullied you. What your father..." He went down to one knee as Snape bludgeoned him again. "And it was more of the same—and worse—with the Death Eaters, wasn't it? Except then you were on the other side," he wheezed. When he managed to catch his breath, he looked up into Snape's face, rage and torment and fear all mixed into a twisted mask with black eyes dark as tunnels. But not empty—how could he have ever thought them empty? "I've seen people beaten and tortured and murdered for being different. For being the wrong color or the wrong gender or for loving the wrong person. You're right: it is everywhere. And what may be worse is the way everyone else looks away, refusing to see or to care. Out there in the Muggle world tens of millions of people have died from a pandemic that nobody in power did anything about until it was too late because they thought it only affected gay people."

"I am not...do not call me..." Snape whispered.

Harry rolled away from a blast that scorched the flagstones and singed the back of his hand. He got to his feet. Batted away a bombardment curse that blew a kitchen sink-sized crater into the wall. "Thirty years ago people were still being arrested just for being queer. Now nobody bats an eye at two men kissing in a nightclub." He battled steadily forward against a stream of hexes and curses that came at him faster and more furiously as he advanced step by step toward the other wizard. "Four years from now the Netherlands will be the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage. England, Wales, and Scotland will follow in 2014." Snape backed away from him until he hit the wall behind him, panting like a cornered beast. "That will force Wizarding society to change as well, if Lord Thingy doesn't take over. This is what we're fighting for, too. We are making progress. Much too slowly, so much of the time, but we can bend the arc of history towards justice if we're willing to work for it. I might be a sanctimonious little prick, but, Snape, I promise I'm on your side, and always will be. You are not fighting alone."

He reached Snape, facing him from less than a foot away. A spasm of absolute terror crossed the other man's face as his wand touched Harry's chest. "Don't," he snarled, baring his teeth.

Harry took the last step forward and wrapped his arms tightly around Snape. "You are exactly who you are meant to be, Severus Snape," he murmured against a thin, firm chest. "There is _nothing_ wrong with you. You are good, and you will protect these children, and they'll live to see a society which will one day accept them for who they are without judgment."

Snape slid down the wall with Harry in his arms until he was seated on the floor with Harry half-lying a little awkwardly across his chest. After a while Harry felt a hand gently touch his head and begin to caress his hair. "Don't look at me," Snape muttered thickly above him, chest heaving. "I don't...want..."

"It's all right," Harry sighed quietly, closing his eyes, content simply to share closeness and warmth. Both of his selves luxuriating in it, in fact. There was not a peep of protest from his seventeen-year-old, on the record or otherwise.

_You okay with this?_

_It's not like you could do this if I wasn't. I showed him who's boss, now let me enjoy it._

_Pfft._

_Shut it._

He took the many-layered scent of Snape deep into his lungs: herbal tones like oregano, basil, and rosemary; a whiff of something sweet like honeysuckle; a tantalizing whisper of something smoky and dark as dragon blood; a dash of orange-rind bitterness; a tiny hint of something harsh yet addictively incendiary, like motor oil. Overlaying it all was the 'scent' of his magic, cool and crisp as snow drifting through dark green boughs of pine.

Eventually his lower half began to cramp, and Harry shifted. "I'm sorry, my legs are falling asleep."

Snape had quieted above him. He lifted his hand away so Harry could move away, and he immediately missed the soft touch in his hair. Snape had his face averted as Harry leveraged himself into an upright position. He leaned back against Snape's shoulder, facing away. "Is this all right?"

"Yes," Snape whispered.

A long moment later: "Severus?"

"Yes?"

His heart pounded fiercely before calming. "May I call you that?"

"Yes."

 _Severus._ Harry smiled and blinked away the wetness in his eyes. "Will you call me Harry?"

"If you wish."

"I do."

A short moment later: "Does this mean we're friends of the mutual trust, common ground, and liking sort?"

Severus snorted, sounding a bit more like his normal self. "Apparently we're of the exposing painful and awkward truths, hatching sinister plots, and dueling each other to a standstill sort."

Harry chuckled, "I can work with that." He hesitated, then added more seriously, "I'm sorry about what I said, about you letting Dumbledore down. That _was_ disingenuous, considering that I've come to the conclusion that he had no business being both Headmaster of this school and the head of the Order of the Phoenix. It's an egregious conflict of interest, and you were one of its victims. You are a brilliant Headmaster. Just...don't make Neville have to defend other students against you? Please?"

Severus gave a long sigh. "I cannot give you an absolute promise, but I do promise to have a rational and urgent reason if I do so again."

"That's all I can ask," Harry said. "Thank you."

"And I—" Severus paused as if struggling with himself. "—I apologize for the jibe I made about your family. I knowingly used information you told me in confidence against you."

Harry gave a choked sort of laugh. "Well, if I'm exposing painful and awkward truths, I probably have no business lecturing anybody about morality. As it turned out, I was exactly the arrogant clueless buffoon you always said I was." He looked down at his hands trembling minutely against his knees and inhaled a shuddering breath. "My second son Al was Sorted into Slytherin, and I had no idea how to connect with him. I was the kind of arsehole absentee father who told my kid I wished he _wasn't my son_."

There was silence from the other man, but Harry knew he was listening.

"And that wasn't even the worst of it." Harry clenched his fists so tightly his nails dug into his palms. "We managed to usher into law a bill criminalizing almost all use of consent-violating substances and spells during the final year of Hermione's term. It covered a broad range: love potions, the False-Memory Charm, and Obliviation, to name a few. During one of the subsequent sweeps, my son James and his friends were caught slipping Amortentia into Muggle girls' drinks at a club. He claimed it was a joke, but I never had the courage to find out the truth. And anyway, the law was clear. Ginny _begged_ me to use my position to clear him, but I refused. I..." he forced the words through a throat so tight he couldn't breathe for a moment. "I send my son to Azkaban."

That day the special light Ginny had always reserved for him in her eyes had died out and turned to contempt. That day had seen his family shattered, like Barty Crouch's, never to be quite whole again. He'd had all the power in the world, from beginning to end, and yet had been utterly helpless. Worse, he hadn't even been able to bring himself to read the investigation report to find out whether James had done it to others until Hermione had sat him down and told him that there was no evidence his son had been a serial offender. Nevertheless, James carried that mark with him for the rest of his life.

"So that's who I am too. A coward and a failure as a father."

" _Harry._ "

Harry opened his eyes, and his breath hitched. Severus' Patronus stood before him, that wondrous creature of dazzling moonlight he had ever only seen once outside of memories and dreams. He held up his hands to her, and she bent her beautiful head to him with quiet grace, her huge liquid eyes steady upon his face. He exhaled a sobbing breath. She leaned toward him, the tip of her nose touching his cheek as if trying to brush away the tears. He reached for her, wishing he could wrap his arms around her, but touched only air and light. He began to cry in earnest then, as she folded her long legs and laid her head in his lap, offering silent comfort and patiently waiting for him to cry out the long-submerged pain of self-loathing and heart-break.

"Thank you," he managed hoarsely what felt like a long time later, and the doe lifted her head, fixed her eyes on his for a long moment, and faded away. "Thank you," he said again to the man who had done this for him. He felt light as the doe herself, tethered to earth only by the solid line of warmth against his back. "I like the way you say my name."

Severus made a soft sound, a huff of air that seemed to speak to a wry, gentle exasperation. "How does it work," he asked slowly, "this sharing of your body?"

"Huh?"

"I...mean..." Severus coughed and cleared his throat. "Your souls. Are you both...conscious—aware—at the same time? Can you disagree on a course of action? If you do disagree, what happens?"

"Yeah, we're both here all the time," Harry confirmed after a pause as he frantically snatched at what remained of his wits from a drifting sparkling nimbus around his head. "We're fundamentally but not exactly the same. It's like if you could talk to yourself as a seventeen-year-old, and could share with him all of your lived experience. You probably wouldn't disagree on all that much, once he understood the logic of your actions and their consequences. The influence is definitely not one-way, though. I'm pretty sure I was somewhat less flexible in my other life, and possibly less impulsive. Still, we don't agree on everything—I'm sure you sometimes 'argue with yourself,' too. When we do disagree, it becomes a stalemate: neither of us can force our body to do something the other opposes."

"So when you say 'I,' you really mean 'we.'"

"Yeah. Uh. Well, sort of. Except when I'm talking about the other timeline, of course. "

"'Sort of?'"

"More like a 'we-as-determined-by-who-cares-more?' So if one of us really wants to do something and the other isn't actively opposed, then we do it even if there might be different levels of enthusiasm for the 'something.'"

"And the piece of the Dark Lord's soul? How does that fit in?"

"When I saw him before," Harry said slowly, recalling, "when he killed me the first time, he looked like a flayed baby, all red and skeletal-looking. He was lying underneath a bench at King's Cross Station."

There was a pause as if Severus couldn't quite figure out what to do with that. "But is he tied to one of you? Or to both?"

"Uh...I have no idea," Harry admitted.

"But you were able to 'put him in a box,' I believe was your term?"

"Yeah, but it doesn't mean I know exactly how he's connected to us, metaphysically-speaking. Sorta like there are thoughts you can push away, but you don't know exactly how or where they're stored in your brain."

"An Unspeakable might."

"Sure? Are you planning to kidnap one so they can make me into a lab rat?"

"I'm sure someone would love the chance," Severus muttered.

"Erg." Harry shuddered a little.

"I am calling in my first favor," Severus declared suddenly.

Harry stuttered a bit as an image popped into his head: Severus in a long white lab coat and a mad glint in his eyes, holding a long carving knife as he leaned over a terrified Harry trussed up like a pig over a pit. "Eh-heh, fire away," he said weakly.

"I wish to investigate your...metaphysical state. I will likely need to run experiments, and I want your compliance."

"What kind of experiments?" Harry inquired warily.

"Yet to be determined."

"Uh...is this one of those occasions where you're going to call me a foolish Gryffindor if I agree, and a reneger of promises if I don't?"

"Ignoble ingrate, rather," Severus sniffed.

"Hah. Fine, then."

"Fine, what?"

"Fine, I agree to subject myself to your terrifying experimentation."

"Foolish Gryffindor."

Harry laughed. "Thank you, by the way. For trying."

"Save your thanks for when they're warranted," Severus muttered grimly.

Harry leaned his head back. "They're warranted now. Intentions matter to me."

Severus snorted.

Harry closed his eyes, breathing deeply, smiling and contently drifting. 

Severus' voice floated to him softly: "How did you know?"

"Hmm?"

"That I was...that I am attracted to men?"

"Uh...I didn't know for certain..." Harry murmured, opening his eyes. "For the longest time I was convinced you were in love with my mother."

"Harry."

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"I think I had better."

"It's not like I found your porn or anything..."

Severus spluttered.

"Wait, you actually had porn and I didn't find it? Ooof, now I'm disappointed in myself," Harry teased, rather delighted. He saw Severus' wand twitch out of the corner of his eyes and hurriedly admitted, "Your books. You have a lot of Muggle authors on your shelves, but Oscar Wilde is one of the few you go out of your way to protect and preserve. And you have two different editions of _The Picture of Dorian Gray_."

"It's a classic," Severus muttered.

"Yup. Also Alice Walker's _The Color Purple_ , Walt Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_ , James Baldwin's _Giovanni's Room_..."

Severus' head thudded back against the wall.

Back in the Gryffindor common room, Ginny threw down her third snapped quill and asked Neville in a whisper, "How long do you think it'll take Hogwarts to digest Snape?"

Neville was flipping through a book that looked like it hadn't been checked out from the Hogwarts Library this century. "No hablo ingles. Me gustan las rosas."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Neville says (in Spanish): "I don't speak English. I like roses."
> 
> "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.' —Martin Luther King, Jr.


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The seduction of Cedric Diggory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please jump to the End Notes for specific warnings for this chapter.

Cedric Diggory was destined to be a hero. He was smart, handsome, talented, and driven. He was popular among his peers and admired by his teachers (except Snape, of course, but then again, he was a Death Eater). If Potter hadn't cheated him out of the Triwizard Cup three years ago, everyone would be calling _him_ the Chosen One.

He and his father had repealed the judges' ruling, of course, and he'd even submitted his memories for review. It should have been clear-cut, the two boys casting _engorgio_ on him in the lake, humiliating him in front of a huge audience, leaving him to enter the maze dead last, already defeated in spirit. He'd even thought he had lost Cho for a while, after he'd failed to rescue her.

But no: the Department of Magical Games and Sports had upheld the outcome and confirmed Potter as the winner of the tournament. It was only later that they'd learned from an old Ministry friend of his father's that Dumbledore had made the ruling as the Supreme Mugwump of the Wizengamot. Cedric had spent months feeling devastated and betrayed, buried under a suffocating avalanche of depression.

Then he'd realized: Dumbledore wanted the Chosen One to be someone he could control and manipulate, not an adult who already knew his own mind. In other words: Dumbledore had his own agenda and could not be trusted to stand on the side of Truth and Honor. 

Even so, his father had insisted that he join Dumbledore's not-so-secret organization, the Order of the Phoenix, arguing that if Cedric had been the one to reach the Cup first and Portkeyed to that graveyard, he might not have made it out alive. Which was kind of insulting, given that Potter, a Fourth Year, had managed to escape. A Fourth Year who, by all accounts, was no kind of magical prodigy.

That was, if Dumbledore's word on what had happened to Potter could be trusted, which was a pretty big 'if.'

The rows that followed his refusal had completely sabotaged his Auror training, leaving him no choice but to grit his teeth and beg his father to help him find another position.

At least he finally stopped nagging Cedric about joining the Order.

The Department of Magical Education wasn't exactly prestigious, but it did offer him an unexpected opportunity to interact with some of the most noble and well-connected families of British Wizarding society; everyone had an opinion about education, after all. He'd never had a problem with making friends, and soon some of the scions of those families, who spent most of their days idling about their offices shooting fireballs at airplane memos, were idling in his office instead. They had a jolly old time, and if sometimes there were jokes and pranks that carried a hint of xenophobia or Pure-blood mania—well, it was only to be expected of a bunch of spirited young lads. Besides, they made some good points, like the fact that a report published by the Foundation for Magical Studies showing that Muggle-born parents were 42.7% more likely to give birth to Squibs than Pure-blood parents had been suppressed by the Ministry. He was no statistician, but he was pretty sure 42.7% was significant.

It was just too bad Cho didn't like his new friends, because they were _fun_. They were irreverent, worldly, cool, and deliciously willing to mock anything and everything, from the ridiculousness of a Half-blood calling himself 'Lord' and affecting Pure-blood manners to the Minister of Magic courting and being rejected by a sixteen-year-old boy. They went around surrounded by an ever-changing but always exceptionally pretty circle of witches who were as interesting and sophisticated as themselves, and had even introduced Cedric to some of them. He hadn't told Cho about this last bit, since her sense of humor wasn't the greatest. Must have something to do with her Chinese ancestry—they were all so serious! He couldn't remember Mr. Chang ever even cracking a smile.

Not that there'd been much cause for humor recently, with Dumbledore's death followed swiftly by Scrimgeour's disappearance. On the other hand, nothing much changed for the Department of Magical Education under Pius Thicknesse, fortuitously released by the Healers in time to fill in as temporary Minister for Magic. In fact, they were all pretty much able to carry on as before with the exception of poor Mr. Rowle, his friend Tanner Rowle's father, who'd been unceremoniously booted from his position as Head Bean Counter of the Magical Finance Matters Department by Arthur Weasley of all people.

"But we still want to make a good impression," Cedric cautioned Cho on the evening they were to join the Rowles for dinner. "The Rowles' connections are legendary."

"But aren't they related to some horrible people—Death Eaters who hurt a lot of people?" He looked over at her: Cho was slowly brushing her hair dry. They only had an hour before they had to leave, and she hadn't even put on her make-up yet! 

He sagely forbore to call attention to her dawdling. "You really shouldn't judge someone based on who they're related to, Cho. I know Tanner, he's a good bloke. Bit of a playboy, maybe—in fact, don't be alone with him if you can help it—but he's a good mate to have in your corner. Besides, if you want to help your mother fix her status, these are the people you have to talk to."

Cho fell silent at that.

He'd known the Rowles were rich, but not _this_ rich. Their 3220-acre estate in Hampshire with its wide avenues, woods, ponds, formal gardens, and "cottage" (palace, more like) was for the "mundane" guests, Tanner explained with a wink. "Intimate" guests like himself stepped into the gigantic marble fireplace that lined one whole side of the main hall to be whisked away by private Floo to the Rowles' private island, which was entirely masked from prying Muggle eyes by a permanent network of layered wards renewed every year by a team of the best security wizards in the business.

Though smaller than the 'cottage,' the Rowles' island 'cliff-house' was beautiful by any measure. Constructed entirely of cobalt-veined pale granite, it had been built to resemble a swan poised to take flight from the edge of a waterfall. Its long outstretched neck contained an observatory and shielded workrooms, while its widespread wings housed fifty bedrooms on either side. 

The great hall was a work of wonder. Unlike Hogwarts, it truly was open to the sky rather than merely simulating it, and the Rowles employed a wizard whose sole job it was to maintain the roof-shield above it (and to change the interior weather should anyone tire of too many overcast days). Sunset painted the octagonal walls in glowing shades of gold, rose, and lavender. Swift-burbling waters ran through channels carved through the granite floor before tumbling over the ledge of the waterfall outside. A gigantic piece of flat translucent crystal overlaying the floor ensured that nobody got their shoes wet if they misstepped. 

The rest of the swan-body contained two smaller dining rooms, a ballroom, a library, an art gallery, a dueling court, and a theater. Of course, those were just the rooms they saw on the tour; there were many more they were not invited to enter.

They also visited the tournament-sized Quidditch pitch outside, as well the gardens, hot-springs, greenhouses, private zoo, and unicorn stables. By the time they were done, Cedric's head was spinning. He'd had no idea of the heights to which wizardry could aspire! Compared to the Rowles, the Malfoys were rank amateurs, and garish to boot. 

Dinner was served in the Spring Garden, an open-air climate-controlled space filled year-round with Spring foliage. Petals from dozens of blossoming cherry trees drifted all around them while hundreds of fairies floated through the air, lighting the night with a soft ambient glow. He and Cho were two of only seven guests invited, the others apparently longtime family friends. Cedric felt the honor deeply.

Willaby Rowle was a distinguished-looking gentleman with a goatee, deep-set sapphire-blue eyes in a long thin face, perfect white teeth, and charming manners. He insisted on helping Cho into her chair, commenting roguishly to Cedric, "If my wife had legs like hers, m'boy, I'd never let her out of the house!"

Cho blushed, while Cedric commented with a smile, "I can see where your son gets his charisma and popularity with the ladies, sir."

Rowle clapped him on the back. "A discerning young lad, I say!" Whereupon he proceeded to engage Cedric in conversation for the rest of dinner almost to the exclusion of his own friends. Cedric was asked for his opinion on everything from his predictions for the 1998 Quidditch World Cup to the Ministry's policies on underage magic. Several times Rowle looked quite surprised or deeply interested in his replies, and Cedric was thrilled to think that he could hold his own against such an erudite and knowledgeable wizard.

Cedric had never experienced a more elegant and beautifully arranged meal, all of it prepared and served by witches and wizards in impeccable uniform bearing the Rowle white swan crest. When he remarked on the lack of house-elves, Rowle replied with a twinkle in his eye, "One day you will see that the only power worth having is power over those who under other circumstances might have been your peers. To make them serve willingly—to hold their loyalty freely—now _that_ is an art."

There was only one awkward moment during the entire dinner, when talk drifted to the recently published (and Ministry-disavowed) report on Squib parentage. 

"It was ahead of its time," Tanner mused. "If it were published today I bet it would be much more favorably received."

"But its methods were flawed," Cho, who'd listened much and spoken little for most of dinner, suddenly opined.

"Oh? Do tell." Tanner's amusement had an edge that made Cedric uneasy.

"I looked into the survey methods the report used. The Pure-blood families were pre-identified," Cho began.

"If we let the respondents classify themselves, all of them would come back Pure-blood," Tanner pointed out with a laugh.

Sometimes he wished Cho wasn't such a Ravenclaw. He placed a discreet hand on her leg and squeezed, but she persisted, "But if the survey results aren't anonymous, they're less likely to be truthful. The Pure-blood families are already inclined to hide away or disown their Squib children; why would they admit their existence on a survey? Only thirty Pure-blood families were sent the survey, and only nine responded. You can't base any significant conclusions on such a small pool of respondents."

"Young lady, are you saying that the Foundation for Magical Studies deliberately lied to the Wizarding public?" Rowle demanded.

"No-not lied, precisely," Cho stammered at Rowle's sudden shift in tone. "I just don't think the small number of responses justified the strong conclusions reached by the report."

"We engage some of the most brilliant wizards and witches in the British Isles." Cho shrank back a little from Rowle's hard stare, and a little silence fell.

"Aw, come off it, Papa. What's the fun of going on and on about a coupla numbers?" Tanner grinned at Cho. "Papa's the Director of the Foundation for Magical Studies, and I keep having to remind him not to bring it up at dinner and send all our guests into a stupor." He seemed to have forgotten that it was he himself who had brought up the report. "I think a change of topic is in order. What's the word on old Lucius? Do we reckon he was really killed by Harry Potter?"

"Bet is on the Dark Lord getting rid of him for the Ministry botch-up," one of the other wizards commented casually.

Cedric froze. Were they really discussing You-Know-Who murdering Lucius Malfoy over pickled runespoor eggs, mooncalf steak, and honey-fried snidget?

"Don't look so worried, lad," Rowle said, good humor seemingly restored. "Look around you. D'you really think the Dark Lord would waste time and resources barging in here when he's got bigger worries on his plate? A Rowle has held this island since the thirteenth century. Besides, the political fall-out would likely finish him."

"If you have that much power, sir (and I'm not doubting that you do, but I'm curious)—why not finish him yourself? You could have the Wizarding world at your feet," Cedric wondered. 

"Ah, now that is an excellent question," Rowle nodded approvingly. "Look around you, m'boy. This is paradise, it is not? Some might ask why we out of so many deserve this. I ask: why not? Make no mistake, it is a burden as much as it is a privilege, and we were the ones chosen to bear it. In return, we offer our society stability, beauty, culture, order, and something to aspire to. The Dark Lord is a part of that order; we cannot have the Light without the Dark. Can you imagine a world where Dumbledore rules supreme? There is a balance to all things, and we are those who maintain that balance."

"But surely now is the time to step in, with Dumbledore gone and the Dark Lord ruling unopposed?" Cedric asked.

"But what has the Dark Lord done, except offer our society a much-needed course-correction? All this pandering to Muggle-borns has made us weak. It's about time someone put us back on the right path."

"But people are being hurt..." Cho protested, though she didn't lift her eyes from the table.

"Ah yes, compassion is a very commendable trait in a young woman, of course," Rowle replied kindly. "But those who see more broadly are sometimes condemned to unavoidable sacrifices in the name of Truth and Honor. But come," he added to Cedric, "it's obvious you spring from the idealistic hero stock, and such talk of worldly concerns leaves you a bit cold, eh? If I may offer a suggestion for a young hero: look to Hogwarts. It was Dumbledore's seat of power, and the Dark Lord knew it. See how quickly he moved to place a trusted deputy there. Whosoever controls Hogwarts controls the future of Wizarding society, and there are many who think Dumbledore left his secrets behind in its hallowed halls (for there is no doubt he was a brilliant wizard, whatever the rest of his flaws). If you'd seek to keep the balance, lad, that's where you need to be."

Unfortunately, more than a month into his stay at Hogwarts, he was finding Rowle's confidence in him to _keep the balance_ more than a bit misplaced. Though he and Cho were ostensibly representatives of the Ministry, they had no real power to effect change within the school, which Snape ruled with an iron fist. Severus Snape, the bully, the tyrant of the dungeons—headmaster! But what could he do? Snape had already warned him once; though Cho had refused to tell him the details of her meeting with Snape, the threat was implicit: he could take Cho away from Cedric whenever he wanted. Cedric had to toe the line, or else.

Cho herself had become anxious, strained, and muddled under the stress, hardly ever even smiling at him anymore. Uncharacteristically, she seemed to be carrying a grudge for the way she'd been dismissed over the Squib Report at the Rowles' dinner, making her surprisingly passive-aggressive and prone to displacing her anger over the current situation with Snape. Added to that her constant queries about her mother's status, and Cedric was beginning to regret volunteering for this assignment.

Tonight, for example, she kept glancing at him as he slit open a Ministry envelope stamped 'urgent' and 'immediate response required.' He couldn't help but laugh a little as he read the short letter within.

"Cedric...?" she inquired in a hopeful voice that instantly irritated him.

"What?" he asked shortly, not looking up.

"Is that...?"

"It's nothing, don't worry about it."

"But..."

"I'll tell you about it later."

"But it's marked 'urgent.'"

Cedric huffed and threw the letter over to her. "Fine. Read it yourself if you're so curious."

"I'm not...I don't..." she held letter out to him. 

He crossed his arms. "Oh, just read it. Not like it's a secret."

Her face fell as she scanned the words. "It's an invitation to listen to Celestina Warbeck perform at a private concert. Why was it in a Ministry official envelope?"

Cedric shrugged. "Just Tanner's little joke."

Cho was silent for a while, and Cedric knew he wouldn't like the next words out of her mouth.

"I'm not questioning your friendships, Cedric, I'm really not. But what Rowle said that night—didn't it make you uneasy? Wasn't it really just Pure-blood supremacist rhetoric clothed in grander words? And people are being taken away to Azkaban now, murdered—"

In truth Cedric had felt uneasy, but he wasn't about to admit that to his girlfriend, who had enough on her own plate to deal with. "You know those are just rumors, Cho. Besides, the Ministry is doing a thorough investigation into every claim of magic-pilfering."

"How do you know that magic-pilfering is real, that it's not just an excuse to lock away the Muggle-born?"

"How else could there be wizards or witches born to Muggles and Squibs born to magical parents?"

"But there's no proof—"

"This is about that damn Squib Report again, isn't it? Aren't you ever going to get over that? Sure Rowle came off a bit defensive, but can you really blame him when you're attacking him at his own dinner table? It's impossible to have a rational discussion with you these days when you get so emotional over every little thing."

Cho drew in a breath and looked as if she were about to cry, which she knew he hated. Cedric waited, teeth clenched, until she somehow managed to swallow it back down.

"Please send along my excuses for the concert. I have work to do here," she said in a toneless voice.

"I'm not going to do that," Cedric replied, relieved. "The invitation is for both of us. It even says you're _especially requested_ to attend. See? Rowle isn't holding any grudges. It even says he found you 'delightfully refreshing.'"

"I'd rather not. Please, Cedric? I don't like the way he looks at me."

For some reason her pleading voice felt like broken glass rubbing against his skin, and he snapped back, "I bet you like the way Neville Longbottom looks at you, don't you?"

"What?" she recoiled, looking both hurt and guilty. "Why would you say that? I'm dressing appropriately, and I asked him not to bring me flowers anymore. It's not like I can turn him away from my office hours."

"Right, you're just doing your job. Funny how often he visits you, though. Are you sure you're not encouraging him now that he's the _Heir of Gryffindor_?"

"If that's really the way you feel, then maybe I should ask Headmaster Snape for separate rooms," she yelled in a rare flash of temper.

Cedric felt instantly contrite. "Cho, you know I don't mean it. It's just hard to keep up with everything that's going on. I need you, okay?" He went and sat down next to her on the couch. "You're the best thing in my life. But can you please just think this invitation over? You know Rowle's still got a lot of influence at the Ministry, even if he doesn't have an official post anymore."

As Cho sighed and reluctantly nodded, he stroked her hair tenderly and decided not to bring up Longbottom again.

The problem was that Longbottom was making a name for himself within Hogwarts as a do-gooder, which of course always appealed to soft-hearted young women like Cho. The kind of hero Cedric had to be was much more difficult and much less eye-catching. Like Rowle said, he needed to keep his eyes on the big picture, to wait for his moment in the shadows, to do whatever it took, to make sacrifices if necessary. 

But he knew that heroes were beloved of Fate, and Fate proved that she stood on his side the day Cormac McLaggen knocked on his office door and came in to sprawl on his couch at his invitation. 

The McLaggens were influential, though not, of course, on the same level as the Rowles. Still, that didn't mean they couldn't be of use to him, even if this particular McLaggen wasn't the brightest (evidenced by the fact that he was repeating his Seventh Year, even if he was admirably sanguine about it). He commented mildly, "Gryffindors are supposed to schedule office hours with Cho."

"Your girlfriend's pretty busy," McLaggen shrugged. "Besides, I wanted to discuss something with you man-to-man."

Cedric leaned back in his chair. "Go on."

"You probably already know this, but my cousin's making a name out there" (he gestured vaguely out the window) "as the General leading the Resistance."

Cedric did in fact know this, because one of his friends from the Ministry set had sniggered about it over drinks the other day. "The Dark Lord could crush him with one hand tied behind his back," had been the succinct analysis. Still, Conan McLaggen led a group of trained Aurors, and that had to count for something.

He cast several privacy spells before responding carefully, "I've heard of him."

"Well, I've been thinking. Hogwarts must be pretty important to You-Know-Who, or else he wouldn't have sent his right-hand-man to hold it down. What if we took it from him?"

Cedric's heart sped up. "Took Hogwarts?"

McLaggen nodded. "We all know Snape's evil, right? He killed Dumbledore, after all. I bet the teachers (other than the Carrows, at least) and at least half of the students would join us if we started a revolt. I can get my cousin to help. Everybody says you're a good bloke—that's why I'm coming to you with this. I think it would mean a lot to the Resistance to have someone representing the Ministry fighting on our side."

"But the Ministry supports Snape..." Cedric pondered.

"Only because they're afraid of You-Know-Who, and Snape's keeping their children hostage," McLaggen pointed out. "If we liberate Hogwarts and turn it into a stronghold for the Resistance, the families with children here will need to reconsider. We may even turn the Ministry itself!"

"What if these stories about Harry Potter are true—what if he turns out to be the real danger?" Cedric asked, though his heart was now pounding with excitement.

"Nah, Conan doesn't believe it," McLaggen said. "Potter's working for Moody, and they're spreading these rumors to make them seem more powerful than they actually are."

That certainly sounded like one of Dumbledore's schemes. "All right. Can you set up a meeting with your cousin?"

This was Cedric's chance, and he was ready to grab it with both hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Emotional/Psychological Abuse
>   * Controlling behavior
> 

> 
> Alternate summary: Cedric got the tl;dr version of "How to Be a Hero" from Steve Bannon instead of Michelle Obama.


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little science goes a long way.

Harry spotted Therios Selwyn at King's Cross one night near the end of September. The other wizard was indeed wearing a Muggle-style suit, of a style that had been out of fashion for at least two decades. It made him look rather like Uni professor. He'd apparently decided to stop walking around with his wand, though it didn't seem to be helping his approaches any.

The dealer he was speaking with was clearly disinterested, finally disengaging from the conversation by drawing aside his jacket to reveal the handle of a dagger-like object and telling Selwyn in no uncertain terms (or so Harry inferred) to fuck off. Selwyn's hands bunched into fists, but he didn't pursue the other man as he walked away.

_Huh, I guess I'm not the worst person in the world at undercover work after all._

_Yeah, except he's an Unspeakable, not an Auror._

_Right. Thanks for that._

Harry followed in his Invisibility Cloak as Selwyn talked to an indiscriminate succession of bouncers, addicts, dealers, sex workers, and even random passers-by as if he had decided that he could overcome the vagaries of chance and obvious lack of leads through numbers alone. Which was not a bad strategy if he were trying to track down the deli with the chef from his mother's hometown that was rumored to serve the best avocado toast in the City (say), but somewhat lacking when it was likely to draw the attention of someone like John Ibrahim to both himself and Sol. If he were either less blond or less frackin' _tall_ , he'd probably already have gotten a fist to the face (or worse) by this point.

Harry eyed the darkened shops, bars, walled alleyways, and graffiti-covered fences around them, looking for a spot where he and Selwyn might have a private chat. He couldn't claim to have a great strategy in mind either, but it was clear that he couldn't leave Selwyn on his own like this, whatever his reasons for seeking Sol.

He espied an opening up ahead, a wide person-sized hole cut into a chain-link fence stretching between an adult boutique and a strip club. He quickened his steps to catch up, and was about ten feet behind Selwyn when an _incarcerous_ spell lashed out of the dark opening and pulled the other wizard inside like the tongue of a toad shooting out to catch a fly.

Harry blinked, froze for a split-second, then sprinted silently up to the opening. Selwyn was on his knees in the grimy alleyway, hands bound behind him. Conan McLaggen and three of his crew surrounded the Unspeakable. An anti-Apparition jinx extended three feet out onto the sidewalk, and Harry felt sight and sound barriers snap up as he approached.

"Therios Selwyn, you're a hard man to find," McLaggen mused, holding two wands in his right hand and tapping them against the palm of his left. "Lucky for me you're like all the other Death Eater scum, though most of you are a bit more discerning about where you choose to slum it. Like Muggle whores, do you? Bit more feisty than that pale Yaxley bitch you keep at home?"

Selwyn remained silent, though tension gripped every inch of him. Harry felt sick to his stomach. He'd finally realized why the other wizard had seemed familiar during that fight at the Ministry: Harry had seen crime-scene photos of his death, some in which his drenched corpse was pictured lying face-down in a puddle of rain water in an alley very much like this one. It'd been during Harry's tenure as a trainee, and he had never found out the murdered wizard's name. Later he'd learned that the Auror-of-record had named 'Death Eater-related revenge killing' as the motive for the murder and closed the case without even an attempt at catching the perpetrators. There'd been countless such cases during and just after the war, most of them never solved.

An invisible blow snapped Selwyn's head to the side. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!" McLaggen barked.

Harry slid off the Invisibility Cloak in one quick motion. "McLaggen."

Three of the four Aurors whirled to point their wands at him.

"You!" McLaggen exclaimed.

Harry held up his hands. "Yup, me again."

"What are you doing here?" McLaggen growled.

"Following him, same as you."

McLaggen's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"Order business, can't say," Harry improvised.

"We got him first," one of McLaggen's men bristled.

"That's fair. How 'bout you let me have a go once you finish with him?" Harry suggested.

"We're not _finishing with him_ , he's got a lot to answer for," the man spat.

"Oh? What's he done?"

"His brother killed Foster."

_Fuck._ "I didn't know Aurors were allowed to assume a person's guilt by association."

"He's a Death Eater," another of the men growled.

"He bears the Mark, then?"

"He's a Death Eater whether or not he bears the Mark," McLaggen elaborated.

So he'd not only rationalized Abraham's death, he'd doubled down.

"That's a dangerous slope to slide down," Harry remarked.

"His brother is a Death Eater, his father-in-law is a Death Eater, his father is a Pure-blood Supremacist, he works for Death Eaters at the Ministry; what more proof do you need?" McLaggen demanded.

"McLaggen, your father and uncle both work for Death Eaters at the Ministry," Harry pointed out. "That doesn't mean I think you're one of them."

"Because my actions prove otherwise. You, on the other hand... The _Daily Prophet_ calls you the next Dark Lord, and it's only on Moody's say-so that I've given you slack thus far. If you cross me again..."

It began to drizzle.

Harry looked up at the dark, dark sky, then at the silent form of the man kneeling in front of him. Selwyn had made no sound, either of protest or of pleading. He was defenseless and wandless but uncowed, unbent, as if he were drawing on some inner pool of strength to keep him proudly upright. Was he that much of a Pure-blood fanatic? Did he believe that his name and his connections would protect him from someone like McLaggen? Or could there be a deeper reason? Everything Harry knew about him seemed contradictory, and yet... 

_They'll always leave you._

...and yet what he'd said to Moody had been true. The seeds of the current war had been planted in the last one and back further still along lines of old feuds and prejudices; they simply could not afford to assume guilt by association and House loyalty, nor to claim the roles of judge, jury, and executioner. Harry would have felt compelled to stand opposed to McLaggen even if Iacchus had been on the ground in front of him instead of his brother Therios.

Harry wondered for a moment what Severus would do if he were standing in Harry's place. If there was some subterfuge capable of getting himself and Selwyn out of this situation without turning McLaggen completely against him, he couldn't think of it. He didn't have Severus' brilliant mind—not along those lines, anyway. He could only rely on his own strengths, and in the end he knew that Severus would concede that armchair strategies were no substitute for decisions adapted to actual battlefield conditions.

The odds weren't great: he was facing four experienced Aurors trained to work as a team. He was holding his Cloak, but not his wand; he would be able to cast at most one spell of decent power before someone hit back. Even the Cloak was of limited use in such a narrow space, for McLaggen and his crew would quickly fall back on wide-area spells when faced with an invisible opponent. 

He was in a Muggle area, which meant he likely had to deal with stricter limits on his magical stamina than the others, so a long duel was out of the question. He couldn't just grab Selwyn and run due to the anti-Apparition barrier, and he would need to stun at least one of the Aurors (and possibly more, depending on how the jinxes were meshed) before he could break it from the inside. Once he managed that, he'd have to prevent the others from Rennervating their downed teammate(s). If, instead, he wanted to move out of range, he had to somehow propel both himself and Selwyn back out of the alley past the sidewalk (or perhaps upwards) at least twelve feet to get clear—and then he would need to deal with Muggles.

McLaggen and another wizard were standing behind Selwyn, so he could not fire on them without risking hitting Selwyn. A third, whom he was sure had his wand trained on Harry, was standing behind him. The fourth was next to Selwyn, wand held on him at close range; he had not reacted even when Harry had unexpectedly appeared. Harry was almost certain he had orders to kill Selwyn rather than risk an escape. Harry was constrained to using non-lethal spells; they were not.

Oh, and lest he forgot: unless he wanted to side-along Selwyn, he would need to disarm McLaggen—again.

_There are only so many constraints you can add to a problem before it becomes impossible to solve!_

_Whose motto was it to 'Attempt what you know to be impossible?'_

_Dunno, probably some bloke who's barking now, unless he changed it to 'I will stop making stupid mottos.'_

_Well, what's the first thing you should do when you encounter a really difficult problem?_

_Panic?_

_Let's fast-forward past that part. Next?_

_I'm gonna sleep on it and get back to you._

"McLaggen, I'm sorry about Foster's death. I knew him only briefly, but he seemed like a good Auror, and a good person. But what you're about to do—harm someone because of what his brother did—that's not justice. And I think you know that," Harry tried.

"Who said anything about harm? We just want to persuade him that telling us what we want to know—and telling it truthfully—is the best course of action."

"If that's all you want, then why not send an owl to your cousin at Hogwarts? I know Professor Slughorn has Veritaserum on hand, and I'm sure he'll give Cormac some if he said it's for you. Or I'll ask, if you want."

McLaggen hesitated, but one of his men demanded, "What if he's immune?"

"That's very, very rare."

"He's an Unspeakable. If anybody knows how, it'll be them."

"What's the alternative? Torture is ineffective as an interrogation method—all it does is encourage your subject to tell you what they think you want to hear. That's been the conclusion of the overwhelming majority of studies."

"Studies by whom?"

"By Muggles."

There were cackles of derisive laughter.

"Who have done way more psychological research than Wizardkind."

"The psychology of _Muggles_."

"Of _human beings_." He was beginning to think that making Muggle Studies a compulsory course was a good idea—provided there was a competent teacher teaching it.

"Get away from him, Potter!" McLaggen pointed both wands in his grip menacingly, having finally noticed how close to the bound wizard his slow steps and parabolic trajectory had taken Harry.

Harry took a deep breath and began silently iterating a very simple cooling spell as he backed away step by step. "What do you think, McLaggen? Isn't Veritaserum at least worth a try?"

McLaggen snorted. "What do you take me for? You know, I'm beginning to think those rumors of Dumbledore forcing the Sorting Hat to place you in Gryffindor instead of Slytherin are true. Defending Death Eaters left and right—you're really on their side, aren't you?"

"Sure, McLaggen," Harry rejoined sardonically. "I bet you believe I killed Lucius Malfoy too, don't you? Oh, and did you hear about the one where I have hair growing from the back of my eyeballs?"

"What, like the Hairy Warlock?" one of McLaggen's men asked.

"That was his heart, you idiot!" said another.

Harry ducked as an _expulso_ smashed into the wall next to him, the impact spewing walnut-sized chunks of concrete into the air. He tripped in his hurry to backpedal and fell to his knees, palm landing on the dirty rain-slicked ground with a tiny splash.

McLaggen sneered. "Get out of here, or the next spell will take a gob outta you!"

" _Glacius_ ," he whispered under his breath, driving his power in an attenuated burst downwards before hauling himself to his feet. Then he swung the Invisibility Cloak over his head in one smooth motion and flicked his wand into his hand as the ground he had secretly cooled around himself and Selwyn froze solid. The Aurors' confusion gave him the momentary opening he needed. " _Fulgur!_ " Rainwater conducted his lightning spell down the length of the alley in a surge of crackling blue-white electricity, striking all four Aurors squarely and rendering them temporarily immobile. All the barriers around them instantly collapsed.

He slashed apart the _incarcerous_ binding Selwyn and summoned his wand, pushing it into his hand as the other wizard staggered upright.

"Get out of here, go!" he yelled.

Selwyn's blue eyes were wide as he looked toward the source of Harry's voice. His face was still unreadable to Harry, as statue-like as the first time they'd met. Then he turned in place and vanished with a pop.

Harry did the same as McLaggen's crew shook off their paralysis and a raging mass of spells hurtled towards him.

Harry called Hermione a few hours later. "Hi Hermione."

"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed. "What happened? Moody is furious with you!"

"Ah...how furious, exactly?" Harry inquired.

"Exactly? On a scale of one to ten: eleven," Hermione responded dryly. "He told me that if I hear from you, I'm to tell you that he doesn't want to see you for a while, and everybody is officially barred from telling you about Order plans."

Giving Moody the cover of plausible deniability was why he hadn't returned to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, and Moody knew that Harry had all the unofficial channels he needed for catching up on Order business. "If he asks, you can tell him I plan to be away for a week or two," Harry said. 

"I will," Hermione affirmed. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." He told her about the night's events.

"Oh, Harry," she sighed. "You did the right thing—you know that, right?"

"Yeah," Harry answered quietly. "I—yeah. It's just that if Iacchus Selwyn really did kill Foster...I let him go, that time at the warehouse."

"What else could you have done?" she reasoned. "You acted according to the best information you had at the time."

"Maybe if I'd Obliviated him, like the Order and other teams doing now..."

"We don't always get to it either, and you were drained as it was. Besides, Obliviation's always made me feel horrible. I mean, to be able to mess with another person's _mind_ , to steal something as intimate as memories...it feels like such a violation."

"It _is_ a violation," Harry agreed quietly. "But if the choice is between that and death..."

"Yeah," Hermione sighed. "Anyway... I hate that we've kicked you out of your own home. Are you all right with somewhere to stay?"

"No worries," a corner of Harry's lips tilted upward as he looked around at his eye-searing surroundings. "A friend lent me a spare room." (He couldn't mention that the friend was Severus and the spare room was Albus Dumbledore's former quarters at Hogwarts, obviously.)

After they hung up, Harry stood and stretched. Severus had glared at him when he'd asked if he could stay and explained why, but hadn't said much besides telling him that he could have the Headmaster's rooms; Harry surmised that Severus expected the rooms themselves to express his disapproval. 

They were...intense. No wonder Severus didn't want to sleep in here. The glare would probably have been enough to give him a migraine in five minutes flat. It was like stepping into a giant van Gogh painting, if van Gogh only had access to sun-colors: the more blinding the better. Even the bathroom was canary-yellow, the bath itself tiled in blazing crimson. He could only describe it as feeling like a tick who had burrowed beneath one of Fawke's wings on a Burning Day.

On the other hand, the bath was simply enormous, possibly as big as the Prefects', and this was one luxury he was not about to pass up. He stripped and climbed in, closing his eyes in bliss as the warm water enfolded him. Would it be overkill to equip Grimmauld Place with one of these? He doubted anyone would complain... 

After his morning check-in with Hermione the next day, he spent a couple of hours doing paperwork with Severus. How ironic, he thought, that he was willingly subjecting himself to the task he'd hated most in his other life. Maybe it was like helping someone clean or move: it was all good fun as long as it wasn't your mess.

They had a routine now; Severus trusted him to do the initial read-through on the correspondence and professors' requests, set aside things that needed the Headmaster's attention or approval, and draft responses to minor matters. Severus still read through all the Carrow reports, though, no matter how trivial. That was the downside of the part of the plan that set the Carrows to documenting every altercation or unusual incident within the school: the number of (generally mind-numbing) scrolls Severus had to wade through. 

"This is interesting..." Harry held up a white envelope bearing a stylized white swan poised to take flight. "Mafalda Rowle begs the pleasure of your presence for a private concert given by Celestina Warbeck in Hogsmeade on the Tenth of next month."

"Indeed," Severus' eyebrow lifted for a second. "Ah, of course."

"Care to share with the rest of the class?" Harry laid the invitation down on the desk and pushed it towards Severus.

Severus didn't bother to pick it up. "Like Slughorn, the Rowles cultivate a collection of young talented people whom they expect to be of use to them in the future. Unlike Slughorn, they have the means to make the experience nigh-irresistible. I suspect Rowle considers my invitation to be the price of entry for access to my students—Draco, for example."

"And Draco's especially vulnerable right now," Harry surmised. "Will you let him go?"

"Of course," Severus replied. "Refusing would only strengthen his resolve to be contrary...not unlike a certain other trouble-making former student I could name."

"Name me a teenager who doesn't bristle at being told 'I know what's best for you,' and I'll tell you which of your students needs an exorcism," Harry countered.

There was a pause during which Harry was almost sure Severus was fighting a smile, but he'd managed to contain it by the time he announced, "Speaking of exorcisms, I'd like to conduct our first experiment tonight."

Well, he'd never backed down from a challenge. Then Harry registered what Severus had just said and shot up from his chair. "Tonight, huh. Ahahah, right." He retreated slowly from the desk. "Any...uh...special preparations I should make before then? (Update my will, for instance?)"

Severus intertwined his long fingers and stared at him unblinkingly. "Why so nervous...Harry?" Huh, his name had never sounded like that coming from any of his other friends. He suppressed a shiver. "These experiments are not designed to hurt you. The first one should be painless...theoretically." Even Severus' usual rich tones seemed laced with malice, like chocolate with a creamy center of poison. Maybe he was more annoyed at Harry for the McLaggen affair than he'd let on.

Harry wasn't sure which part alarmed him more: the 'first' or the 'theoretically.' "I'm not nervous, why should I be nervous? It's not like you regularly disembowel things...and slice 'n dice things...and skin things...and de-brain things...and scoop eyeballs out of things...that might still be alive...or twitching...or wriggling...or writhing...or screaming silently (like I'm doing now)... So I'll just, you know, make my rounds and be back later...yup definitely later (maybe)...byyyye!" He gained the safety of the cloakroom and fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Water is a conductor, ice is not. (Yay, science!)
> 
> [John Ibrahim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ibrahim) is known as "The King of the Cross" and alleged to be the "lifeblood of the drugs industry of Kings Cross." Before him, [(Abe) Saffron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abe_Saffron) (mentioned in ch. 29) was "the boss of the Cross" and owned numerous businesses in the Kings Cross red-light district.


	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Experiment #1 goes pretty much as you'd expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is part one of a two-parter. The next chapter will be posted at the end of the week. ^_^

Harry considered not going back to Hogwarts that night, he really did. But Severus had caught him at a low point (i.e. homeless)...which, when Harry thought about it, seemed like very suspicious timing. Why had Harry agreed to these horrors again? Oh right, because 1) Severus had asked it as a return on his favor, 2) he'd just finished baring his soul at the time, and 3) it hadn't seemed that dire when it'd been planned for 'some unspecified date in the future.' He was beginning to see a pattern here.

Well, he wasn't a Gryffindor for nothing, if only because he lacked the Slytherin guile to find a way to back out on his word. Severus wouldn't really try to stick a long hollow needle into his eye to suck out his brain and turn him into a Muggle-style zombie, would he? Friends didn't do that to each other, and they were friends, right? 

Although now that he'd thought about it, wasn't it just the slightest bit ominous that Severus had come up with that rumor about pickling Neville's soul in a jar and replacing him with an Inferius?

_This is a sign you've watched too many horror movies._

_Do you have any idea how hard it was to find an activity all the kids enjoyed?_

_Why did so many of them have to feature mad scientists in lab coats?_

_Because they're the scariest._

_Are you sure we can't run away?_

_We gave our word._

_At least he said it won't hurt._

_"Theoretically." Theoretically the needle-in-eye thing doesn't hurt either because the retina doesn't contain nerve endings._

_AAAAAGH._

_AAAAAGH._

Having two panicked voices in their head was exponentially panickier than one.

"So, um, why do I have to be lying down for this?" Harry asked later that night, having finally resigned himself to his fate. 

They were in the Headmaster's workroom, and Harry was horizontal on his back on a long padded table that resembled an altar rather too much for his peace of mind. Nor did the jars of indescribable things which had migrated up from Severus' dungeon office reassure him regarding his prospects. For some reason it seemed like anything that had eyes was staring at him, including a whole XXXL-sized jar of free-floating newt eyeballs.

"Because I don't want you to hurt yourself should you have an untoward reaction," Severus responded steadily.

Even more worrying was the large journal covered thickly with diagrams and Severus' familiar spiky handwriting. It was open to the first page. "And I'm strapped down because...?"

"Because I don't want you to hurt yourself should you have an untoward reaction," Severus repeated expressionlessly.

"Just what sort of untoward reaction incidence rate are we talking about here?" Harry demanded, unable to help wriggling around a bit in his thick leather bindings.

"Unknown. We're treading into uncharted territory," Severus pointed out, not looking at him. "Do I have to dose you with a Calming Draught?"

Harry took a moment to consider this. "It won't interfere with the experiment?"

"Hmm, you have a point. Better not," Severus agreed blandly.

Harry glared. "Are you trolling me right now?"

"Hogwarts does not employ trolls, and even if we did, they would not be allowed near delicate equipment."

"Does your cranium count as delicate equipment?" Harry muttered. "Fine, fine, I'll behave. Have your wicked way with me, then."

Severus' eyes widened slightly, and he abruptly turned his back on Harry, who could see the tip of both his ears turning pink. The reaction was so devastatingly human, so utterly charming, that he couldn't help but smile in flattered disbelief. Who'd known he was capable of evoking a response like that from a man like Severus Snape, of all people? 

The smile slid off his face as soon as Severus turned around with a beaker of a frothing viscous liquid that bore an uncanny resemblance to boiling blood, though it smelled more like scorched rose petals. 

"Don't tell me I'm supposed to drink that," Harry quailed.

"Did you not agree to perform these experiments with me?" Severus said with exasperation, though his color was still high.

"Sure, but I didn't promise to do them _without complaint_ ," Harry pointed out.

Severus huffed a little and held the beaker out to him.

"Um..." Harry looked down at himself.

Severus blinked, waffled for a moment as if he were calculating the likelihood of Harry scurrying away once freed, and finally approached. He moved his hand to Harry's hair, and Harry lifted his head slightly, allowing Severus to cradle it from below. "All right?" he asked, his voice a soft rumble, and Harry rolled his eyes and gave him a silent glare. Severus' smile was very faint, but it reached all the way to his eyes. He held the beaker to Harry's lips. "Drink it slowly," he encouraged.

_Is it a bad sign that he looks like he's enjoying this?_

_Don't talk to me. I'm in hiding._

_Burying your head in imagined sand isn't hiding._

_Better imaginary sand in my ears than that potion down my throat._

The taste of the potion was faint, like the astringency of unripe grapes but without the sourness. The texture, an unctuous sludge that slid through his mouth like a giant warm slug, was more of a problem. He had to tell himself very firmly not to chuck it back up again, because Severus would probably do him a grievous injury if he did.

Severus gently laid his head down and peered down at him steadily, studying his reactions.

"How long 'til it's supposed to take effect?" Harry wondered.

"Almost immediately."

"What's it supposed to do?"

"I can't tell you that, it might affect the results."

"Right, the scientific method." He should've known better than to ask. 

They stared at each other for a while. "Are you waiting for me to tell you more deep dark secrets?" Harry quipped.

"It's not a truth serum," Severus dismissed. He paused. "Are you feeling the urge to?"

"I feel the urge to say 'It wasn't me,' but then again you're staring at me, so you're probably biasing the results, Headmaster."

Severus gave him an exasperated look and went to tend to his potions.

Harry closed his eyes and dozed for a while.

"How can you sleep on that thing?" Severus asked, low, so as to not startle him.

"I was always on the go as an Auror, so I had to learn to sleep anywhere," Harry murmured, opening his eyes.

They stared at each other some more.

"Are you feeling anything out of the ordinary?" Severus finally asked, somehow giving the impression that he was fidgeting even though he wasn't doing anything of the kind.

"No soul-searing pain, so that's a good sign," Harry answered, cautiously optimistic.

Severus glowered as if he would have preferred the soul-searing pain and went to flip through his notebook. There were perhaps fifty pages of notes.

"Try speaking in Parseltongue," Severus suddenly demanded.

"But—"

"Just try."

Harry released Voldemort's Horcrux from its mental strongbox, focused on the imagined image of a snake, and said, "I hope all the experiments are like this one."

"They'd better not be." Severus glared. "Now say it in Parseltongue."

"Um, that _was_ in Parseltongue," Harry answered.

Severus stared at him with something like horror. "How do you know you're you and not this timeline's Harry?"

"Because this timeline's Harry is right here and says: 'I hope the potion is better-tasting next time.'" Harry paused. "You just committed treason against the scientific method, didn't you?"

Severus slammed his notebook shut and waved his wand to vanish the leather bands tying Harry to the table, obviously disgruntled. Harry, on the other hand, was feeling quite cheerful. "So what was the potion supposed to test, anyway?"

"The _potion_ was supposed to temporarily tranquilize a possessing spirit. The _experiment_ was to explore the bond between you—between your two souls. Which of course is two-and-an-eighth souls, and I didn't account for the eighth part. Obviously the potion was unable to deal with the level of chaos Harry Potter is capable of bringing to any endeavor," Severus grumbled. 

"Isn't there a rule in scientific experimentation to test your base assumptions first?" Harry wondered innocently. "Maybe it would've saved you forty-nine pages of experiment-devising if you'd made two batches of the potion and used one to verify its effect beforehand."

Severus glowered. "I see you're suddenly feeling sanguine about these sessions. Perhaps we should resume tomorrow night." 

Harry hopped off the table with alacrity. "That's quite all right. Take your time; your methods are irreproachable."

The problem with devising the sort of experiments he needed, Severus thought, was that Western magic tended to concern itself with magical effect rather than source. The question of the soul, the mind, and of the 'magical core' in relation to them both was left to mystics and philosophers rather than scholars of the scientific persuasion. This was not helped by the fact that those who wanted to treat the soul as an experimental subject were regarded, without exception, as Dark, which only succeeded in making it so.

What he needed, Severus decided, were more books. But though he knew exactly where he wanted to go, he was going to need help with the practical aspects.

"More books, huh?" Harry commented with more amusement than seemed warranted when Severus informed him that he wished to call in his second favor. "You mean there exists some place on our earthly plane of existence that carries books not found in the Hogwarts-Dumbledore-Snape-Black Collaborative Library Network?" 

"There are many," Severus rolled his eyes. "The Wizarding Library of London, for instance. But the kind of texts we need would require a research permit from the Ministry, and that would be equivalent to announcing our interest on the front page of the _Daily Prophet_."

"All right, so if not a library, then where?"

"A bookstore in Soho."

"And the problem is...?"

"The bookseller doesn't like to part with any of his books. And keeps irregular hours. And tends to pretend to not be in if you show any interest in visiting the shop."

"...Right," Harry blinked slowly. "Don't take this the wrong way, but do you know any sane people? Such as deputy school heads who like children, booksellers who sell books, wizards who are not out to take over the world?"

"Gryffindors who don't travel to another timeline just so they can sacrifice themselves a second time?" Severus retorted snidely.

Harry chuckled. "Touché."

Severus tapped his wand on the desk, opened the second drawer, and stuck his head inside, rummaging through the mountain (literally) of scrolls inside. Where had Dumbledore put the blasted thing? Even with a sorting spell it took him several minutes to find the right piece of parchment, and he drew it out with a small cry of triumph.

He unfurled it proudly on the desk in front of Harry: it had taken him and Dumbledore years to come up with this information. Well, to be fair Dumbledore had had most of it mapped out before he'd come along, but Severus had added some important and innovative corollaries, such as the syzygy lemma, which accurately predicted the conditional twice-month closing unexplained by any other part of the calculations.

Harry's eyes almost crossed as he took in the (to be fair, quite dense) information. "Is this place a bookstore or a side-branch of Gringotts? What am I supposed to do, break some wards to be considered worthy of purchasing a book?" He tilted his head and leaned in closer. "I've never seen a ward change with phases of the moon before."

"These are not ward schematics--they calculate the bookstore's hours of closing," Severus explained, pointing at a paragraph in four-point font at the bottom right corner of the parchment, which read:

> I open the shop on most weekdays about 9:30 or perhaps 10am. While occasionally I open the shop as early as 8, I have been known not to open until 1, except on Tuesday. I tend to close about 3:30pm, or earlier if something needs tending to. However, I might occasionally keep the shop open until 8 or 9 at night, you never know when you might need some light reading. On days that I am not in, the shop will remain closed. On weekends, I will open the shop during normal hours unless I am elsewhere. Bank holidays will be treated in the usual fashion, with early closing on Wednesdays, or sometimes Fridays. (For Sundays see Tuesdays.)  
> 

"You're kidding, right?"

Severus ignored the other wizard's look of disbelief. He tapped a line of numbers in the middle of the parchment. "Those indicate the store's maximum opening hours: an outer bound. These—" he waved at the dense arcs, arrows, Arithmantic calculations, runes, and interwoven scribbled notes in two different handwriting that filled the rest of the parchment, "—are a calculation of probability for the store to be open given various conditions such as day of the week, time of day, weather, previous opening date and time, relative position of Alpha Centuri, traffic on Muggle highways with a weighted focus on the M25, establishment of new gourmet eateries as a factor of its distance from the shop—"

"Uh...does the probability ever reach 100%?" Harry interjected.

"No, and this _laguzōþilagebō_ function explains why—"

"The which?"

Severus pointed at the function in question, which began:

and ended as an elegant diagram with a line rising steeply before plateauing into infinity.

"How 'bout if I just swing by on my daily rounds, then?" Harry suggested, hardly sparing the elegant diagram a glance.

Severus frowned at him. "You will never find the store open by luck alone."

"Wanna bet?" Harry waggled his eyebrows with a roguish grin that was absolutely not charming in any way. 

Severus paused. It pained him in a fundamental way approaching moral indignation to admit even the possibility that such an unscientific element as luck could prevail against a meticulous collaborative work years in the making. (Also, he hadn't even gotten to the syzygy lemma yet.) But when it came to Harry Bloody Potter... "Fine," he sighed. "Do it your way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you got my silly math joke, I virtually high-five you!


	36. Chapter 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus is about to learn that being Harry's friend comes with benefits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for unrepentant wackiness: where I do a blatantly fluffy riff of _Good Omens_. If you're unfamiliar with the work, all you really need to know is that Aziraphale is an angel who operates a bookstore, and Crowley is a demon and has been his friend (acknowledged and un-) since the fall of Eden.
> 
> Yes, this is absolutely silly and written because I needed something light or else I might curl up under my comforter and not emerge again until Nov. 4++ (or hibernate for the next four years, depending.)
> 
> Thank you to everyone reading and responding with kudos and comments; I really appreciate it! Please stay safe. ♥

Day one

"So I went to the address you gave me and thought a side-door was open, but when I went inside it turned out to be a place called Intimate Books instead. The only thing they had on souls was _Sweet 'n Spicy Shipwrecked Soulmate_ , which was apparently book three of a series."

"Spare me the details."

Day two

"I went by four times. Isn't Thursday supposed to be a good day?"

"It was raining."

Day three

"I thought I saw someone go in, but the shop was still 'CLOSED.' I staked it out for hours, but nobody came out again."

"Was it a man wearing dark glasses?"

"Yeah?"

"They were probably getting sloshed in the back. That, or he left by Floo."

"What? You didn't tell me a wizard ran the shop!"

"That wasn't obvious?"

"...No? And how do you know they were getting sloshed?"

"Because the man you saw, Crowley, is the only person who is always allowed inside—probably an old friend. The shop gets regular shipments from private vineyards in Tuscany and Provence—Dumbledore tracked them down. Crowley is mentioned nowhere, however."

"This obsession is kinda creeping me out, just so you know."

Day four

"The sign flipped to 'OPEN' for about three minutes, then someone walked by, and it flipped back to 'CLOSED.'"

"Typical. You might as well forget about Saturdays. Also Sundays."

Day five

"You're right, the entire day was a wash. I kept thinking I saw movement, and possibly a flash of white light, but no change at the sign. Now you've got me obsessed."

_Smirk._

Day six

"Severus? Drink your Polyjuice and get down here _right now_."

"But it's..."

"I know what time it is, but it's been open for ten minutes already, and the light is still on! This must be 'light reading' time!"

Severus Apparated into the corner street in Soho about five minutes later, fully expecting the shop to already be closed again by the time he got there. But no: it was still brightly lit with the beckoning warmth of the lighthouse of Alexandria pulling knowledge-starved sailors to shore, and Harry grinned at him in triumph and excitement. "Come on!" he cried, and set off rapidly across the street.

Merlin's bollocks, he'd forgotten to tell Harry about the first rule of approaching the shop: stay invisible until you're at the door, with your hand _on_ the blasted door! He chased after the other wizard, knowing it was futile, knowing that the light was about to be extinguished any second. They got closer...and closer...and still the sign said: "OPEN." Ten feet...five feet...two feet...and just as Harry reached for the door Severus saw a shadow flit past the right-hand window. 

And he knew it was all over.

Grim momentum alone propelled Severus forward. Comfort wasn't his strongest suit (correction: it wasn't even a suit that had a passing acquaintance with his closet), but he had the inane idea that he should offer Harry some platitudes for his impending disappointment. He had done well, after all: Severus hadn't even gotten across the street on his first encounter with an open shop.

He opened his mouth to say he-knew-not-what.

The door swung open.

The bookseller himself stood beaming in the entrance, haloed by the warm light spilling out onto the sidewalk. "Why hullo there!" he seemed to almost glow with joy. "It's you! I never expected Mr. Harry Potter! Here! At my home—er, bookshop! It's an honor, of course! Please, come in!"

Oh, of course. _Of course_ A.Z. Fell would be one of the Boy-Who-Lived's legion of fans.

"Ah, hullo," Harry ran a hand through his hair. "Mr. Fell? Um, I've heard amazing things about your shop. I hope you don't mind us taking taking a look around."

Severus rolled his eyes and strode past Harry; as long as he was making himself useful by keeping the bookseller busy...

Despite its surly owner, the shop was a place of beauty and wonder. There were cozy reading nooks; sturdy old wooden shelves overflowing with rare editions that could be found nowhere else (not even the Wizarding Library of London); books lovingly arranged by a system neither he nor Dumbledore had completely penetrated but which somehow made sense to a part of him that instinctively knew where to direct his feet, like a treasure map already engraved in his neural circuits. He even loved the smell of it, redolent of London's Autumn damp and that peculiar sweet, musty, faintly vanilla scent of ink upon sheaves and precious sheaves of old paper. In short: it was a book-lover's paradise, guarded jealously by a despotic and ferocious dragon willing to protect its hoard by any means necessary (short of actual violence).

A despotic and ferocious dragon crowned with white curls and dressed in an immaculate white suit who had now led Harry inside and was fawning over him—there was no other word for it—on a tour around the place. The sign, he could see, was now turned to "CLOSED."

Severus directed his feet towards the back of the shop at a brisk pace, but his forward momentum decreased with every step as if each shelf exerted its own gravitational force upon him. The last shelf he passed he did so walking sideways and then backwards, and then finally had to give in and backtrack so that he could stand squarely in front of it and gaze upon it with the reverence it was due.

Here were pristine first-edition, autographed, and/or author-notated copies of _The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim_ (also known as Paracelsus the Great); _The Mirror of Alchimy_ by Roger Bacon; _A Discourse of Fire and Salt, Discovering Many Secret Mysteries, as Well Philosophicall, as Theologicall_ by Blaise de Vigenère; _Collectanea Chymica_ by Eirenaeus Philalethes; _Treatise on the Great Art_ by Antoine-Joseph Pernety; _An Essay on the Investigation of the First Principles of Nature_ by Felix O'Gallagher; _Mutus Liber_ (author disputed), _Splendor Solis_ (likewise); _Livre des figures hieroglyphiques_ ( _Exposition of the Hieroglyphical Figures_ ) by Nicolas Flamel...

The foundations of the art of Potions-making and its ancient alchemical forefather collected on one shelf!—how was it possible for anyone to have gathered them all in one place? He didn't even dare reach out to touch for fear he wouldn't be able to bear letting go again (it'd happened before, to the detriment of his modest vault).

He only managed to shake off the haze of book-lust when Harry and A.Z. Fell approached, the murmur of their voices intimate as old friends meeting again after a score of years. Severus ground his teeth and resumed his journey, only allowing himself a brief yearning glance at the two (!) beautiful first editions of _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ sitting side by side on a shelf near the stairs. 

The stairs themselves appeared steep, rickety, creaky, and in imminent danger of collapse. They were in fact all of these things, and kept purposefully so. Severus braced them with a surreptitious spell and went carefully up to the first floor, to where the really esoteric books were kept. Here were heaps of religious texts spanning cultures, ages, and languages; books of prophecy by seers, mystics, crackpots, and everything in between; traditions of magic reaching past Merlin himself to the primal Fire Starters and Rain Dancers, Wind Singers and Earth Tamers...

The books on souls overflowed four shelves, though one of them was dedicated to soulmate nonsense. Of the rest, three-quarters comprised of theory and philosophy, with the rest purporting to describe actual instances of spirit-summoning, possession, exorcism, transmorgification, and the like. These he could not simply dismiss out of hand, and he began a methodical though rapid skim-through of each (a bit less rapid for those needing translation spells), trying to narrow his choices down to three—five at a stretch, if the funds in his vault and Harry could be prevailed upon to cover the rest.

He took another draught of the Polyjuice and then lost track of time for a bit, trying to read but not be drawn in by the words. The pile by his feet already held eight books, and he was attempting to force himself to return the one in his hand back to the shelf when a voice commented, quite close, "The Word is all very well—opposite of ineffable, in fact—but you should really consider seeing what's in front of your nose once in a while."

"What?" he snapped at the interruption to find himself face-to-face with the mysterious(ly untraceable) Crowley—tall and lanky, of indefinite age (though Dumbledore claimed to have met him when he himself was a young man), exuding an amorphous air of menace that always gave Severus the irritating impression he was standing in front of a large looming predator, eyes hidden behind wrap-around dark glasses even indoors. 

Crowley pointed with his chin towards the sound of Harry's voice. "The pure-of-soul are always such a temptation, aren't they?"

Severus turned to see Harry and Fell standing next to the shelf at the bottom of the stairs. Harry was saying something, gesturing with that animated enthusiasm he reserved for topics for which he was particular passionate, which formerly consisted (it seemed to Severus) solely of Quidditch, but which had latterly branched, rather disconcertingly, into such topics as social justice, civil liberties, and the International Statute of Secrecy. Also, oddly, exotic tree species, which was fascinating given that he hadn't yet figured out what it had to do with anything.

Severus was too distracted to pay attention to what Harry was saying at the moment, because just then Fell leaned over and blatantly _sniffed Harry's hair_! Which was—which was—! It was beyond the pale, was what it was! And unprofessional to boot! (Even if Harry's hair had smelled nice, that time in the Room of Requirement when they'd... Well, after the duel. Like sunlight and the woodsy scent of his shampoo. Which must mean he smelled a bit like Severus' shampoo, now that he was living in the castle. Which thought he must scrub from his brain posthaste lest he lost his goddamn mind.)

Severus slammed the book in his hand (gently) on top of his pile and staggered with the whole towering stack down the stairs, setting all of it defiantly on the scarred wooden desk downstairs which served as the shop's counter.

"Are you done already?" Was that a hint of disappointment in Harry's voice?

"As you see," he glared, and Harry cautiously backed up a step at its heat, which only served, unfortunately, to move him closer to the bookseller. Who was staring at the books as if he'd never expected anyone to have the gall to attempt to buy that many volumes at once.

"You...you want _all_ of them?" he said, aghast, his voice rising to a squeak.

"All of them," Severus replied curtly.

"But it took me centuries to collect them all!" Fell wailed.

"Nevertheless," Severus insisted ruthlessly, refusing to bend to the hyperbole of that statement.

"It's really a testament to your amazing talent and perseverance, Mr. Fell," Harry encouraged, all warm smiles.

Severus clenched his teeth as Fell visibly melted. 

"Well... well, if it's to help you..." he beamed, tilting towards Harry at an angle no less aslant than 25 degrees from the vertical.

"It would be a _great_ help," Harry reassured him.

"I suppose in that case..." he swooned, "That'll be two million seven hundred and forty-six thousand—"

Severus' stomach roiled sourly. He'd been out-played, and royally. He doubted even the combined galleons of the Potter and Black fortunes could afford the asking price, let alone Hogwarts' library budget and his own professorial earnings. What was worse was that he knew the books were actually worth that, and more. (Some of the volumes were, in fact, priceless.)

"Angel," drawled Crowley's voice from behind Harry, having descended silently without anyone noticing, "weren't you complaining just the other day that Heaven should render more aid to its Chosen Ones? Well, now you have a _bona fide_ Chosen One right here, and you're going to—what, begrudge him a coupla decimal places? Where's your angelic grace, eh?"

For a moment Fell's face twisted as if struggling mightily between two deeply moral questions. Finally he muttered waspishly, "Oh, very well! That'll be two million seven hundred and forty-six thousand, three hundred and twenty-four farthings. _In_ farthings."

Severus blinked and did a mental calculation. He quickly whipped out his Hogwarts Official Business checkbook and wrote the check, signing his name with a flourish. "You will be able to take a Gringotts delivery here tomorrow, I assume?" he asked smoothly, handing it to the bookseller.

"Yes," Fell choked.

"Good. I shall make the arrangements." He heaved the stack of books into his arms before anyone could cry 'highway robbery.' "Come along, Mr. Potter."

As he turned towards the door, Harry shook Fell's hand with a smile bright enough to light the whole city block. "Thank you so much, Mr. Fell. I promise we'll give your precious books all the care they deserve."

"I...I'm sure you will," Fell sniffled, voice wobbling. "And please call me Aziraphale."

"Thank you, Aziraphale. Call me Harry. And thank you as well, Mr. Crowley..."

Severus rolled his eyes as the shop door closed behind him. So he did know how to wield his charm after all. "Where was this effortless manipulation with McLaggen?" he asked snidely as quick footsteps caught up to him.

"I wasn't trying to manipulate him—I genuinely like him," Harry protested cheerfully. "Here." He carefully took four books from the top of Severus' stack. "It went rather well, don't you think?"

"So well Dumbledore himself couldn't have done any better."

"Huh, a compliment! You must be over the moon, then," Harry grinned, victoriously smug. "What do you think they're going to do with 2.7 million farthings?"

"I'm sure I have no idea, and have absolutely no wish to."

Day seven

An angel and a demon stared at the pile of coins heaped in the center of the shop almost to the ceiling _past_ the first floor.

"What _are_ you going to do with 2.7 million farthings?" Crowley asked after a while.

Aziraphale shrugged helplessly. "It sounded like a good idea at the time... And Harry was so... _so..._ distracting... He smelled like... I can't even describe to you... Remember those crêpes in '93, French Revolution? Heavenly..." he sighed dreamily.

"Bite your tongue, Angel, those crêpes were tasty! Awesome, even!"

"That's what I meant!"

"Well, grab a bag and let's go for lunch at the Ritz, your treat."

"Would they even take it?" Aziraphale wondered.

"Why not? Money is money, and I've gotta say ye old British currency has gotten mighty boring of late. No guineas, no sovereigns, no crowns even! This'll put some spice back into the system."

Realization dawned on Aziraphale's face. "It was you! You—!"

"Chop chop! Your chocolate soufflé awaits."

Such were the hazards of being best friends with a demon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A farthing is 1/4th of a penny, or .0025 of a British pound. It went out of circulation in 1956. Imagine if you sold a book for $1 and your buyer gave you 400 quarter-pennies. Perfectly demonic, no? XD


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fighting the good fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the end notes for specific warnings for this chapter.

Neville was beginning to think he'd given Harry way less credit than he'd deserved for surviving six years at Hogwarts as the Chosen One. Because it was absolutely bonkers, the way the whole school was talking about him, making up rumors about him, calling him the Heir of Gryffindor as if he had a clue what he was doing. (He didn't. He had no clue. None.)

And then there was Snape, who had seemingly emerged from the Room of Requirement unscathed except for a convenient spot of short-term amnesia regarding the detention he'd been about to give Leigh and Parvati. Ginny had speculated that that had been the only part of him Hogwarts had been able to digest before spitting him back out in disgust.

"He _is_ the Headmaster, after all," Anthony pointed out pragmatically. "It's probably against the rules for Hogwarts to harm its Head."

Neville's private theory was that it'd been Harry all along: the Voice in the Headmaster's Office, the thrashing-by-leftovers of Tremblay and the other Slytherins, the force which had borne Snape into the Room. What he couldn't figure out was how Harry had managed to overpower Snape and Obliviate him. Maybe he'd had help? Maybe was he protecting Hogwarts at the head of an army even now?

No, wait. This was exactly what other people were doing to him: spinning fantastical theories out of thin air based on the flimsiest of evidence. What he did know was: if it was Harry, he'd gone to great lengths to keep his presence a secret, and Neville would not be the one to expose him. If it wasn't Harry... Well, the thought of some ancient power singling Neville out was rather terrifying. He really didn't want to deal with the thought of messages scrawled in blood on the walls again.

In any case, they couldn't assume that the Guardian would always be along to save the day—everyone was agreed on that. Well, mostly everyone. There'd been several suggestions from his fellow Gryffindors on how to best unleash chaos on the school, which had made Neville wonder if they truly knew what 'chaos' meant. (See above, re: blood on walls.) It was just as well that Ginny's quest idea was keeping them all focused on training. Neville was even feeling better about his Shield Charm, which previously tended to collapse if anybody even looked at it wrong, let alone hit it with something. The only downside was that Ginny seemed quite serious about actually stealing the Sword of Gryffindor from Snape's office, which was why they were currently reading to the stone gargoyle guarding the secret stairs from _A Thousand and One Magical Fungi_ (Ginny) and _Magical Plants of the Scottish Highlands, Volume 2_ (himself).

They both paused at a muffled _thud_ from down the hall and looked uncertainly at each other. Parvati and Leigh were acting as lookouts, and were supposed to warn them if anything happened. They picked up their wands, prepared for trouble. Just then their fake galleons heated, and a single word appeared: _Run!_

"But...we can't just leave them!" Ginny protested. 

"Let's go." They headed down the hall towards the spot where they had left the two girls. "Parvati...?" Their fellow Gryffindor was seated against the wall, limp and unmoving. Leigh was missing entirely. At the sound of her name, she slowly lifted her head as if fighting against some great weight. Both Neville and Ginny stopped dead at the fear in her eyes. She mouthed something silently.

"Parvati, what...?" Ginny asked helplessly, her wand trembling minutely in her hand.

A deadly chill swept down the corridor, a feeling like slimy, skeletal fingers dragging Neville down into deep water by the ankles. He was drowning, and any minute now Snape would sweep around the corner, haul Neville off to his secret dungeon lair, and make him pay for the Headmaster's Office and the Room of Requirement. His wand dropped out of his nerveless hands, and he sank to his knees as he lost feeling in his legs entirely.

Far off in the distance, he heard Ginny incant, " _Expecto Patronum_!" There was a brief flash of silver light, and the cold retreated slightly. That was when a red stun bolt caught her square in the chest, and she crumbled soundlessly to the ground.

"Ginny..." he whispered, feeling around for his wand, a dark haze descending over his field of vision as the Dementor—for Ginny had been right, of course—approached. His wand flew from his grasp just as his fingers made contact, and Neville fell headlong into darkness.

He regained consciousness in the Defense classroom, tied to a desk so tightly he couldn't wriggle his hands. Ginny and Parvati were similarly bound next to him, and even before he saw both Carrows in the room with them he knew that they were in horrible, horrible trouble. For he could still feel the malevolent, hungry stare of the Dementor even though he couldn't see it, fogging his thoughts with nameless terror. 

"Welcome back to the land of the conscious, 'Heir of Gryffindor,'" Alecto sneered. "You and your little friends are going to tell us how you're playing your filthy tricks, one way or another."

Neville drew in a breath. Beside him, Ginny looked as terrified as he felt, and she whispered, "Neville, call for help. Please call for help."

He opened his mouth to do just that—and stopped. He couldn't, not like this. Not with the Dementor here, and the Carrows so obviously waiting for him to say the words. If it was Harry, or some other kind, helpful being made of flesh and blood, he'd be drawing them straight to the Dementor—straight into a trap. Worse, if it was Harry or another witch or wizard, defending themselves would also mean identifying themselves.

"I can't," he whispered back, and said to both Ginny and Parvati, "I'm sorry."

They were both pale and wide-eyed, but there was no condemnation on their faces. "Leigh—" Parvati began, but was interrupted by Amycus.

"Enough chitchat! Who's going to spill the beans, eh?" He swept his wand between them. "Tell me who's been helping you!"

"We don't know!" Ginny cried.

Amycus' face darkened, and Neville knew that the next thing out of his mouth would be a curse. "You're never going to get it out of us!" he shouted to bring the Death Eater's attention back to him.

" _Crucio_!"

Neville arched back in his chair and screamed before he realized...something felt different. The curse was still painful, yes, but more on the level of a Stinging Hex than the boiling-in-his-own-skin agony he'd felt before. He continued to howl even as he wondered if Harry—if the Guardian was already in the room with them, trying to protect them. Had he realized it was a trap? How could Neville keep him safe?

"Stay away!" he wailed. "We don't need your help!"

The curse stopped. Both Amycus and Alecto immediately cast, " _Homenum revelio_ ," and Neville's heart stopped for a beat. But there was nothing and no one in the room with them.

"We'll never tell you!" Neville spat, "so you can just forget about it!"

As Amycus' grip on his wand shifted, ready to cast again, Parvati shouted, "Wait! I'll tell you! Just please stop hurting us!"

Alecto pointed her wand at Parvati. "Tell us!"

"I...I've never actually seen the Guardian..." Parvati hedged.

"Parvati!" Ginny shouted. "Don't tell them!"

"Tell us right now!" Alecto jabbed her wand into Parvati's chest over her heart.

Parvati took a deep shuddering breath and revealed, "It's the ghost of Godric Gryffindor!"

There was a moment of stunned silence.

"Liar!" Alecto hissed.

"I'm not!" Parvati insisted. "It even says in _Legends of the Four Founders_ that Godric Gryffindor will rise to defend Hogwarts in its time of greatest peril. Every true Gryffindor knows the truth in their hearts."

"Don't listen to her!" Ginny interjected. "She's just making things up!"

Amycus and Alecto looked at each other with unease.

"No I'm not! Just because you don't feel it doesn't mean the rest of us can't!"

A twinge of uncertainty quivered in Neville's heart. What did it mean that he didn't feel it either? Why had his thoughts leapt straight to Harry instead of the Founder of his own House when he knew that some of the things their mysterious protector had done to help them were impossible for a boy of seventeen?

" _Crucio_!"

Parvati thudded against the back of her chair as a thin scream issued from her lips. 

"No, wait, she's telling the truth! It is the ghost of Godric Gryffindor! He's going to remember all the ways you've hurt us and pay you back ten-fold!"

" _Crucio_!" Amycus sneered, and Ginny began to scream too.

"Stop!" Neville shouted, struggling so hard the desk bounced across the floor. All of their wands had been careless dropped onto the lectern at the front of the room, and Neville strained to summon his with all his might. It didn't even twitch, and at that moment he hated himself for being so useless at Charms.

It seemed an eternity later when the curses stopped, and for a minute only ragged breathing filled the classroom. 

"I told you they're going to be stubborn," Alecto said smugly.

"So you did," Amycus smirked. 

They gave each other anticipatory looks that made Neville's stomach turn with nausea.

"Snape won't like it, though," Alecto cautioned. "He's constantly snarling about the amount of paperwork he has to do."

"What he doesn't know won't hurt him," Amycus pointed out slyly. "Being Headmaster's turned him into a boring old bureaucrat. There was a time when he would've made certain he got a front-row seat for this. He only has himself to blame for making us document every little thing."

"If he reports us to the Dark Lord for insubordination, though..." Alecto hesitated.

"He won't. Who'll keep these brats in line for him then?" Amycus responded confidently.

Alecto smiled and gestured at the Dementor with her wand. It floated silently toward them, feeding on their defiance and replacing it with icy fear and desolation so vast it felt like the waking world was being replaced inch by inch with nightmare. All three of them began thrashing in their seats, their screams pure animalistic panic now as Death came closer and closer, reaching for them with skeletal, scabrous hands...

Somewhere far off in the distance the door slammed open and a huge creature of moonlit silver swooped into the room, bringing warmth and sanity in its path. Neville took one huge gulp of air and another before his eyes cleared enough to see an enormous hawk back-winging in front of the Dementor, slashing at it with its wicked talons and screaming at it in silent challenge until it fled into the far corner of the room. A sleek silver cat followed, prowling around the Dementor and keeping it hemmed in as its summoner strode into the room.

"Professor McGonagall! Professor Flitwick! Leigh!" They cried out in bone-melting relief as the Charms professor and their friend followed their Head of House inside.

"What is the meaning of this?" Professor McGonagall demanded, taking in their bound forms.

Professor Flitwick slashed their bindings apart with a violent movement of his wand. "This is outrageous!" he shouted in his high voice. "A Dementor in the school, used to terrorize students! You'll be sacked for this!"

"I think not," Amycus smirked. "I'm quite sure the Headmaster will agree that it was an appropriate measure to induce honesty in students who have proven themselves recalcitrant liars. Not to mention incorrigible rule-breakers."

"Professor McGonagall, we—"

"This is a school, Professor Carrow, not Azkaban," McGonagall interrupted Ginny coldly. "We mete out appropriate punishments to students. We are here to teach, not _harm_ them."

" _I'm_ Deputy Headmistress, McGonagall, and I say what's appropriate when it comes to punishment," Alecto's lips curled thinly.

All of the Professors had their wands out, and the air felt pressurized as if before a thunderstorm. Neville caught his breath. He grasped Ginny's hand and tried to gently pull her toward the door, hoping Parvati and Leigh would follow. But at the movement, Amycus' wand instantly swung towards him.

"Aim your wand away from my students," McGonagall growled in a voice he'd never heard from her before.

"Why don't you make me?" Amycus smirked.

"Just what is going on here?" the cold, smooth voice broke the tense standoff and froze everyone in place for a moment.

"Headmaster," both the Carrows said respectfully, dropping their wands to point at the floor.

"Headmaster," McGonagall and Flitwick followed suit after a brief hesitation. 

"Need I repeat myself?" Snape sneered.

"We caught these students attempting to break into your office, Headmaster, and were in the middle of questioning them when Professors McGonagall and Flitwick barged in," Amycus supplied.

"Indeed?" Snape swept a cold look over the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw Heads of House. "And why, Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, have you chosen to interfere with a disciplinary issue?"

"In case you haven't noticed, _Headmaster_ , there is a Dementor in the room," McGonagall pointed out stiffly, looking capable of shooting flames out of her eyes at any moment. "These students were in danger of being Kissed!"

Snape smiled as if he would like nothing better. "An exaggeration, surely? I am confident Professor Amycus Carrow has the creature well under control. He is, after all, the Dark Arts professor." He looked to the man in question.

"Of course, Headmaster. Merely a prop to encourage verisimilitude," Amycus nodded, smiling back genially.

"I myself witnessed—" Flitwick began, only to be dismissed by Snape:

"I have heard enough. Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, you will take your students back to their Houses and assign them appropriate detentions for their transgressions. I suggest that as their Heads of House, you impress upon them the consequences should they continue to flagrantly disregard school rules, like a certain fame-seeking miscreant whose own intractable rule-breaking has resulted in his being labeled Undesirable No. 1."

As Neville followed the girls and his Professors out of the room, the anger burning in his gullet reflected on their faces, Ginny muttered exactly what he was feeling: "I wish Hogwarts _had_ digested Snape, greasy hair and all!"

  


_Darling Ron,_ Ginny wrote, and stared at the blank page for fifteen minutes straight before burying her face in her hands and groaning. It was a bright crisp Saturday morning, perfect weather for flying, and she was still in bed with the curtains drawn trying to write her brother a love letter.

That sounded so wrong. So, so wrong.

As a matter of fact she was trying to impersonate Hermione writing her brother a love letter, but that didn't sound much better.

Also, Hermione probably wasn't the type to use pet names.

She crossed out the first line and tried again: _Dear Ron,_

_I've realized I'm madly in love with you, and I'm pretty sure you're madly in love with me too. Can you please get a clue and stop snogging Lavender so you can snog me instead?_

_Yours,_  
_Hermione_  


Actually, Hermione wouldn't use 'get a clue' either. Ginny vanished the letter and took up another parchment from her rapidly-dwindling pile. Why was she doing this again? Oh, right, because she'd spent the past few weeks learning to forge Hermione's handwriting, and she was in too deep to turn back now. _Impersonating_ Hermione in writing was another matter altogether, though, and she suspected she was being massively out-of-character. Ugh, why did all her brilliant ideas have to take so much work?

Several hours later she finally had something she was satisfied with. The key, she congratulated herself, was in realizing that Hermione was more the subtle-approach kind of person than the hit-them-with-a-Quidditch-bat type. But given how oblivious Ron was to subtlety, should she have added that bit about the snogging after all? Ack. 

Just then her stomach growled, reminding her that it was lunchtime and she'd already missed breakfast. She'd wasted a precious half-day writing a love letter to her brother! What was her life, even? Screw it, if he was too dense to understand her finely-crafted Hermione impersonation, she'd just have to find another way. Like hitting him with a bludger. Repeatedly. Until he forgot all about Lavender.

'Delivering' the letter turned out to be the easiest part of the enterprise: she simply sat down next to Ron at lunch and slipped it into his pocket while he was occupied by the mountain of fried chicken drumsticks in front of him. He barely noticed her as the pile of gnawed bones grew and teetered on the edge of his plate. Oh, right, now she remembered why she never sat next to him at meals if she could avoid it. The things she did for love...

They had Quidditch practice after lunch, and she and Ron, who were co-captains this year, got to the field early to set up. There was a lone flier circling high above them, and Ginny had to squint into the sun to identify him.

"Malfoy." They looked at each other.

His usual bodyguards were nowhere in sight. In fact, she'd spotted Malfoy alone more this year than in all her previous years put together. Without his hulking companions he seemed rather small and lonely, a slim figure drifting through the air listlessly as a leaf snatched from the Whomping Willow. 

Ron pointed his wand at his throat and said, "OI MALFOY, OUT! WE'VE GOT THE FIELD RESERVED!"

Malfoy ignored him.

"OOOOI FERRET-FACE! GO MOPE SOMEWHERE ELSE!"

Malfoy abruptly shifted into a dive, aiming straight at Ron. Ron stood his ground until the very last moment, sure the other boy was going to swerve. He ended up with his rump on the grass, scrambling frantically backwards, shouting, "ARE YOU INSANE?!" Malfoy pulled up so abruptly she could imagine the air screeching and landed with both feet on the ground. He was graceful, she had to give him that. He pulled out his wand, gray eyes blazing, as Ron popped back up to his feet.

Ginny rolled her eyes, sighed, and crossed her arms.

There followed the most unimpressive duel she had ever witnessed. Ron (being Ron) spent more time off his feet than on it, mostly by tripping over them. Malfoy, clearly dealing with Issues, fought in utter silence broken only by his ragged breaths, and missed so often the stands behind Ron began to creak and buckle alarmingly.

Until one of his _incendio!_ s set Ron's robes on fire. Whereupon her idiot brother scrambled out of it and threw it to one side instead of casting _aguamenti_ on himself. It took Ginny several precious seconds to remember why this was bad; by the time she did, the robes (and the letter over which she had labored for hours) had already turned into a smoldering pile of ash and withered thread.

That was when she pulled out her wand and proceeded to kick both their arses.

  


"And by 'kicking both their arses' you mean..." Cho murmured with her chin propped up in her hands as she listened.

"Landed all three of us in detention," Ginny mumbled. "At least Malfoy didn't get out of this one, since it was Madam Hooch who caught us."

"Couldn't you have called Madam Hooch in the first place instead of joining in the fight?" Cho asked diplomatically.

She hadn't told Cho the real reason why she'd lost her temper, of course. "You can't do that to your own brother, however annoying he is," she made a face.

Cho smiled a little. "Of course."

"I'm really jealous of you for being an only child sometimes," Ginny admitted.

"And I'm jealous of you for having siblings you get along with so well," Cho answered.

"When they're not being dumb-arses, which is nearly always," Ginny wrinkled her nose. "Did your mum ever want another kid?"

"My mum asked me once, when I was nine or ten, I think, if I wanted a little brother or sister. And I said no, like the spoiled brat I was; I didn't want to share my parents' attention with anyone else. I sometimes regret it now, though."

"Why?"

There was that little silence that usually meant Cho was going to change the subject, but this time she answered slowly, "Because I'm scared that I can't help her on my own, and I wish there was someone I could trust to fight for her."

"What?" Ginny sat up straight. "Is your mum in trouble?"

"She's...it's complicated," Cho sighed. "And anyway, we're not here to talk about my problems."

"You always listen to me, even when I'm being silly," Ginny pointed out. "I want to be here for you, too."

Cho hesitated. "Cedric's worried that too many people knowing will cause problems. You'll keep it a secret, won't you?"

"Of course," Ginny confirmed firmly.

"It's the Muggle-born Registration Act," Cho confided softly. "My mum wasn't born here; she only got her wand when she immigrated from China in her teens to live with her grandparents. Her family has practiced traditional Chinese spiritual magic for generations, but none of them were educated at Mahoutokoro. Mahoutokoro doesn't accept many non-Japanese students, and anyway relations between China and Japan have been really tense for at least the past century. So Mum didn't learn Western magic until she came here, and of course her parents didn't know it either. The Ministry issued her a notice to appear before the Muggle-born Registration Commission in August. Cedric's dad has been trying to help clear up her status, and the trial date keeps getting pushed back, but it's just nerve-wracking, you know?"

"Wow, that...sounds horrible," Ginny said. "I'm so sorry. Ugh, I can't believe I'm going on and on about Quidditch practice when you're dealing with so much."

"But that's what I'm here for," Cho smiled a little. "It helps to take my mind off things, so please don't worry about it. It's not like there's much I can really do for her..."

Ginny bit her lip. "What if...she could get one of the Order's Portkeys? They've been evacuating Muggle-borns with them. Maybe she can hold onto one as a backup, in case the trial goes against her. Would that help?"

Cho brightened. "Is that possible?"

Ginny thought for a moment. First she had to get in touch with one of the Order members, but she thought she knew a way. "I can ask."

"I'll talk to my mum, too, to see what she thinks," Cho smiled. "Thank you, Ginny, this means a lot."

Ginny only hoped this plan didn't go the way of her letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Depictions of torture
> 



	38. Chapter 38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hazards of being a sanctimonious little prick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the end notes for specific warnings for this chapter.

"Huh," Harry-of-a-Timeline-Past said, looking at himself.

"Huh," Harry-of-the-Timeline-Current said, looking at himself.

They both turned to stare at Harry's body lying curled into a fetal position on the ground. Blood surrounded him in a scarlet pool flaring slowly outward.

"That looks painful," Harry Current winced.

"It was pretty damn painful, yeah," Harry Past agreed. "Gut wounds usually are."

"I think I've already blocked it out, so don't remind me." Harry Current paused. "Is this it, then? Are we dead?"

Harry Past looked around himself. "There's usually a bit more to go on."

"What about that?" Harry Current pointed at the ground.

"What?" Harry Past squinted.

"You don't see it?" Harry Current questioned, and Harry Past shook his head. "It looks like we're standing on a path of some sort. It's glowing a bit, maybe?"

"Hmm. What else do you see?"

Harry Current looked around. "A whole lot of nothing. What about you?"

"There's a...lump on a stalk growing out of your head. It looks kinda like a worm wearing a goalkeeper's helmet, but it's dormant."

"What?! Get it out of me!" Harry Current felt around the top of his head and yanked at the growth frantically. "Ow, fuck, that hurt!"

"Leave it," Harry Past grabbed at Harry Current's hands. "It's the Horcrux. You can't get rid of it like that."

Harry Current shuddered all over. "That is fucking gross." He breathed in and out for a while. "So what now?"

"I guess it's up to you, since it's obviously your show. We can follow the path or..." he nodded at their body.

"You mean I can choose?"

"Given that we haven't gotten a visit from Death yet, I'd say yes."

"It's gonna hurt a fucking lot if we go back, isn't it?"

"A fucking lot."

"I guess I should know what happened, then. How badly did we screw up?"

"Well, Draco stabbed us."

"Malfoy, that little shite?!"

"Hazards of being a sanctimonious little prick. How much do you remember, anyway?"

"Not that part, obviously. I remember sneaking into the Celestina Warbeck concert. Rowle and his wife were there, plus a bunch of people from the Ministry that I—I mean, you—recognized, and a bunch of people you didn't. Neither Selwyn nor Yaxley came, but Cedric, Cho, and Malfoy did."

Harry Past took over the narrative, "Afterwards Draco went off alone to Tomes and Scrolls, and we followed. He agreed to talk with us and led us down to the cellar. Apparently his family owns the business—I never realized. He accused us of killing his father, we denied it. We tried to talk him around and offered him and Narcissa the Order's help. That was when he stabbed us."

"Help declined, I guess. The moral of this story is: don't poke an angry ferret."

"That's a bit reductive."

"Tell that to the hole in our belly." They both looked over at their limp body. "Is Voldemort about to arrive with his Death Eaters?"

"I don't think so. Draco said he wanted us to die down here choking on our own blood." 

"Lovely. And you wanted to help him why?" 

"He ends up being a decent person."

"Sure, relatively speaking," Harry Current huffed snidely.

"What do you want me to say? He has a wonderful son who's been Al's best friend for pretty much all of their lives, and he was a better husband to Ginny than I ever was."

"Meaning he puts the welfare of those he considers 'his' way way above any considerations of fairness, justice, or duty, the way you never could. He stirs up feelings of inadequacy and resentment in you, and you overcompensate by being extra-extra solicitous towards him."

"That's...not as far off-base as I'd like it to be," Harry Past admitted.

"I am so kicking his scrawny arse the next chance I get," Harry Current declared. "So no Voldie and his Merry Band, probably. Can we Apparate out, then?"

"There's an anti-Apparition barrier set up down here. Also a knife made of magic-nullification metal in our gut. So we'd have to make it about half-way up the stairs, pull out the knife, Apparate before we pass out from lack of blood, and hope to get somewhere without being Splinched too badly."

"I suddenly feel like I know exactly how Severus felt when he was trying to save our lives over and over again."

Harry Past groaned. "If we get out of this alive Severus is going to murder us."

"Justifiable homicide," Harry Current agreed. "All right, on three? One. Two—"

Harry opened his eyes and clenched his teeth tightly to keep from screaming. His body was chilled and shivering, his legs entirely numb. There was no way he could climb to his feet. Every breath was agony and inched him closer to the urge to retch uncontrollably, and he could not seem to get enough air. Bile burned in his throat and on his tongue, and he could not tell if the blood he tasted was from his stomach or from biting too hard on his lip. He began to pull himself forward by his hands.

Dying, Harry decided, was one of those things where there was a whole universe of difference between its theoretical concept and its lived reality. During his out-of-body experience there'd been a cushion of abstraction which had made the distance between the two sides of the veil seem very short indeed. Now, with his life trickling warm, sticky, and cloyingly metallic through his fingers, he felt a surge of indignation at the abuse his poor seventeen-year-old corporeal form was suffering. End product of 3.5 billion years of evolution, with its 100,000 million miles of blood vessels, bones four times stronger than concrete, a nose that could detect a trillion smells, a waking brain that produced enough electricity to light a light bulb, eyes with resolution equivalent to a 576-megapixel camera, a heart that circulated the entirety of the body's blood to its every extremity and back again a thousand times a day—tall, short, thin, stout, whatever the gender or color of its surface layer, the human body was a marvelous thing indeed. 

His musings were enough to get him to the bottom of the stairs. The first step, however, seemed dauntingly steep from the angle of the dusty floor. It was pathetic how much he cringed at the thought of more pain. 

_That was supposed to be a galvanizing thought, by the way._

_I'm gonna galvanize Malfoy's nose, fucking hell!_

_As payback for the_ Sectumsempra _it's not too far off..._

_Ugh, you're not gonna let me turn him into a dung beetle and stomp on him, are you?_

Being a grownup, thought at least one of the souls still enclosed (barely) by Harry's gasping, quivering body, was vastly overrated.

It felt like hours later when his ears finally popped, signaling his blood-smeared escape from the anti-Apparition barrier. Now he was both sweating and chilled, and he couldn't stop himself from dry-heaving as dizziness overtook him for an excruciating minute.

_Possibility of Apparating out of here with all our parts intact?_

_Given that we're starting from a point of non-intactness..._

_Seriously?_

_Eh...33.33%?_

_Those are not good odds. Also, you don't sound very sure about that._

_People tend to be wildly over-optimistic in their estimations—it's a thing. So the real probability is likely something closer to 6%._

_Oy vey. Dear Universe: if you don't want me to give myself an epithet like 'Harry Potter the Once-Gutted, Now One-Armed Warlock,' please send help._

He hallucinated a couple of crickets.

_Well, here goes._ He wrapped one very gory, very shaky hand around the hilt of the knife.

"Harry Potter is hurt!" said a squeaky, distressed, and familiar voice.

_Oh, thank Severus._

He fainted.

Severus was mad. (Yes, of course 'mad' was an understatement. So was 'furious.' So was 'incandescent with rage.' Since there were no words in the English language capable of fully expressing the heights of Severus' fury, Harry decided 'mad'—simple, short, unpretentious—was as good as anything else.) Even unconscious Harry felt as if he were lying on the super-heated slope of a rumbling volcano; the force of the other wizard's eruption probably registered on the Richter scale. Fortunately Harry wasn't conscious to see it. Unfortunately the first time he managed to blink his eyes open, it was to Severus muttering in a tight, strained voice, "Bellatrix Lestrange is not above using poison—she probably learned it sitting on her father's lap. I am certain she was the one to provide Draco with the dagger. It'll take hours to positively identify the substance, and he may not have that long."

"Headmaster, he's awake," warned someone standing behind him.

Shite, Severus had called in Madam Pomfrey. Things must be worse than he'd thought.

Then he looked down to see Severus with his hands full of Harry's intestines, which he was frowning at as if he were inspecting a row of sausages for purchase. Which sight was more than any man could be expected to deal with, on the good drugs or not. Harry promptly fainted again.

The second time he woke up, he immediately saw Severus' hazy face hovering whitely over him. The bags under his eyes were dark as bruises. He managed to garble a question through a throat so hoarse he might as well have been yelling his lungs out for hours.

"Will you stop asking when I last slept!" The fierceness of the Potions master's glare would probably have been enough to inspire a hasty retreat in times past, but Harry found to his dismay that none of his muscles would obey him. The touch of Severus' palm to Harry's forehead, however, was unwontedly gentle. Its soothing chill was very, very welcome against his burning skin.

"You have a fever," Severus informed him curtly. "And no, I do not accept your apology. If you're going to ignore my advice, what good is a belated plea for forgiveness? Go back to sleep."

How'd he know that Severus would have the bedside manners of a Norwegian Ridgeback about to lay a clutch of eggs? Harry obediently closed his eyes. 

"If you do not stop making idiotic remarks I shall not be responsible for any actions of the fire-breathing kind," Severus huffed.

See? Terrifying.

The next time he woke, which was obviously not the third, he felt like he was burning up from the inside. Everything around him was soaked with sweat: his clothes, the comforter, the sheets, the bed. Severus shoved an ice cube into his mouth as soon as he opened it, and with amazing efficiency lifted Harry with a hovering charm, changed comforter and sheets, cleaned and dried the bed with medical-grade spells, then did the same to Harry. Harry was resettled and tucked in again before he'd finished his yelp.

The time after that, he knew he was about to throw up the instant he regained consciousness. "I—" was all he managed to utter in warning before saliva flooded his mouth and he was heaving over the side of the bed. When the nausea and tears of misery abated somewhat, he was surprised to discover himself leaning against Severus and a basin hovering in front of him. One of Severus' hands was holding Harry's hair out of his face, the other stroking his back in soothing repetitive motions. 

"I'm sorry," Harry gasped, too embarrassed to look him in the face. "You don't have to do this. This is way beyond anything... I mean, I can do this on my own, I'll survive, you should get some rest."

Severus merely vanished the contents of the basin and handed him a glass of water. When his hands shook too much to allow him to drink from it, Severus helped him hold it steady. "Stop apologizing," he grumbled irritably. "How do you feel?"

"Dizzy," Harry rasped weakly, pushing away the glass after taking a few sips.

"Can you bear to take some potions? They should help with both the nausea and the pain."

"What if I toss them back up?" Harry fretted.

"Then you toss them back up," Severus responded calmly.

"Don't go," he whispered, hurting too much to care that he was contradicting himself; Severus' lean torso was the only point of stability in the room.

Three bottles sailed into Severus' outstretched hand, and once again he helped Harry drink them down. They weren't half-bad, compared to the rest of Severus' creations.

"I'll research better-tasting potions when I want to encourage your reckless escapades," Severus promised dryly.

"I'm sorry," Harry sighed. "You have better things to do than baby-sit me."

"If you must apologize, then promise me you'll stop taking foolish risks."

"Foolish as determined by you or me?" Harry smiled a little.

"If you must ask..."

"Probably doomed to failure, yeah." He buried his face against Severus' shoulder. "Thank you."

He heard Severus' exasperated sigh and felt Severus' hand stroke comfortingly through his hair before he drifted off again.

His head felt relatively clear when he opened his eyes again. He had no idea what time or day it was. He sat up a bit, trying to get his bearings.

First, the wound: though the pain had simmered down to a 'manageable without shrieking' level, he was careful to keep his movements slow and slight as he pushed back the comforter and gingerly lifted up the familiar sickroom robes and then unwrapped layers of bandages to bare his stomach. The area just below his navel was bruised a motley purple bisected with an inflamed-looking thick red line about two inches in height. It was still slowly oozing blood. By the look of it Draco had jerked the knife upward after the initial impact—or perhaps he'd done it himself while falling, though Harry's memory of the actual event was thankfully vague. He swallowed against bile and re-bandaged himself before determinedly looking around.

He was lying in a gigantic four-poster bed, but he was not in the Headmaster's quarters. Though not large, the room comfortably contained a merrily blazing fireplace as well as a nightstand, overflowing shelf, dresser, armoire, and the bed shoved up against one wall, all of them of a dark sturdy wood like walnut or ipe. The walls were bare of paintings, decorations, or windows. He saw the slice of a sitting area through one open door; he guessed that the other, which was closed, led to an adjoining bathroom.

Based on the utilitarian feel of the room and Severus slumped in a chair with his head pillowed on his folded arms on the nightstand piled high with scrolls, Harry guessed that he was in Severus' bedroom. So not only was the Headmaster playing nursemaid to Harry, he'd given up his bed to do it. Looking at Severus' strained, unhappy face, lined with exhaustion even in sleep, Harry felt the sinking, squirming type of guilt that came from failing to live up to his responsibilities. The kind of self-disgust and self-recrimination that meant he'd roped someone else into his mess because he hadn't anticipated enough, done enough, _been_ enough to encompass all the consequences of his actions.

But that had always been true, hadn't it? His marriage had buckled under the strain even at the best of times. Had it been worth it? 

He'd helped people, certainly, and he was proud of the work he and Hermione had done to make Wizarding society a more equal, inclusive place. But had it truly become even a little fairer, better? He couldn't say. Maybe that was a right that had never rested with him in the first place; maybe only future generations could make that judgment. 

How did anyone reconcile the worth of their public and private lives? Missing his children's first steps and first words in order to spearhead the endless investigations that had led to the capture of nearly all of the Death Eaters. His son in Azkaban and the heart-break of his family against the new protection given to all those who could be deprived of their ability to make informed choices by the flick of a wand, drops of a potion in their drink. There was no contest. And yet... and yet.

He'd never thought he would have this again, to be cared for by someone who truly cared. That that person could be Severus made him ache in ways he was afraid to admit to himself. He shifted slightly to the side and reached out a shaky hand to brush away a long strand of fine dark hair that had fallen over Severus' face. He didn't wake. Harry wondered how long it'd been since Severus had last slept, if he was taking the Wideye Potion again. 

He thought that if he could do everything over again, he'd quite like a quiet life where he did not drive his friends and family to distraction by regularly putting himself in harm's way. Or had that never been in the cards for him, through some combination of ego, stubbornness, guilt, and the demands of the world he felt compelled to answer? He had truly thought that no one else could fill his shoes, though he'd never articulated it to himself in so many words. If there was any truth in that, then from this remote perspective he could acknowledge that he must count it amongst his failures rather than his triumphs.

He pulled his mind back to the present with an effort. Severus was already dealing with so much; Harry had no right to put yet another burden on him. And still he'd deluded himself that he was here to help. What a joke, given that he'd probably driven the other wizard right back to the Wideye Potion.

Merlin, he hated dungeons. He could almost feel the oppressive weight of stone pressing in on him, thrusting his thoughts down and down into the airless dark. For a moment he was tempted to flee through the Floo.

"Harry? Harry, what is it?" came Severus' concerned voice distantly.

Harry struggled to resume a normal rate of breathing, to unclench his hands from their white-knuckled fists. He closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, I can't stay here. It's not...it has nothing to do with your room, which is lovely. I just need air...a window...I feel like I can't breathe..."

He opened his eyes. Severus' face was impassive, considering. "I'll ask Winky to take you back up to the Headmaster's quarters directly. Will that do?"

"Yes, thank you," Harry let out a shuddering breath. "I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing. I shall follow with your potions shortly."

Exhausted by his thoughts, Harry was asleep again almost as soon as his head touched the pillow in the Headmaster's Tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Graphic depictions of violence and physical trauma
> 



	39. Chapter 39

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter courtesy of the 33.33%* of you who are thinking that Harry and Severus are having way too much fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * This estimate reached by surveying exactly 0% of readers. If you'd like to register a complaint regarding my statistical methods, leave me a comment. XD

Severus stared down unseeing at the scroll in front of him, the blandly elegant lines from a Quick-Quotes Quill blurred into illegibility by his total inability to focus.

Harry was gone.

There was no reason why the thought should take on such ridiculous pathos in his mind, but Harry was _gone_. There had been no cheerful "see you tonight," or "I'll be back tomorrow." He hadn't even managed to hold Severus' gaze when he'd informed Severus that he'd decided to 'get out of your hair' and spend the rest of his convalescence at Grimmauld Place. 

It was a good thing, Severus told himself firmly for at least the seventh or eighth time that morning. Less distraction. He could finally get some work done. And it wasn't as if Harry had left for good; he'd need to return at least monthly to retrieve the Wolfsbane Potion. Why, in fact, had Severus even mentioned that the month's dose was ready? He should have kept his mouth shut and forced Harry to come back for it in a few days' time. Yes, he was exactly that petty; he certainly was capable of forcing a sick man to risk Splinching himself for an unnecessary Apparition. Except he hadn't. Merlin's beard, Gryffindorness was catching. This was what came of being on a first-name basis with a bloody do-gooder. Who had slept in Severus' bed. And had run away screaming as soon as he'd realized that fact. Not that Severus could blame him. What had he been thinking?!

Severus buried his hands in his hair and bit down a growl as he tried to get his mind to stop going around and around in useless circles. The simple fact was that he'd been in his quarters when Winky had appeared with Harry looking as if he were wearing all his blood on the outside. He'd so resembled a corpse Severus had felt his mind blank completely and his heart literally stop for a second before he'd remembered to cast a diagnostic spell on him. He hadn't even paused to think before he'd stabilized Harry with the strongest such charm he knew, levitated him onto the bed, and asked Winky to bring Pomfrey.

But also, the truth was that there had been a moment before Severus had inadvertently fallen asleep at his nightstand and before Harry had asked to be moved up to the Headmaster's quarters that he'd stood mesmerized by the slim figure with the dark mop of messy black hair against his pillow, marveling at how much smaller he seemed asleep than moving about with his usual conviction and bombast. Severus had certainly not been indifferent to the sight of Harry in his bed. How could anyone be? Given that, he should have asked Winky to assist Harry, not tried to do it himself. Not tried to touch him, comfort him. What did he know about comfort, after all? He might as well be a python trying to comfort an injured mouse.

And then there was the book. 

The book.

It lay on his desk, on the side he had come to think of as Harry's. Its gilt lettering on beveled gray paper-covered boards was instantly recognizable: _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ , printed in 1891 as one of only 250 first edition copies. It was in immaculate condition. There was only one place where Harry was likely to have gotten it, and he doubted Harry had paid for it in farthings.

There had been no note, but Severus had found it square on his side of the desk facing his chair that morning. Harry must have left it there before he'd left. Severus had forced himself to move it to get some work done after staring at it dazedly for what felt like hours.

Was it a message? A warning, given both Dorian and Basil's ghastly ends? But that would mean Harry casting himself in the role of Dorian, which seemed unlikely. Was it a simple act of friendship? Or was it a good-bye and good riddance? Or perhaps a 'thank you for saving my life, yet again?' He tried to reconcile the host of theories and failed yet again. There was also the fact that Harry had likely bought the book that time they'd gone to the bookstore in Soho together--what meant...what? Severus tried to visualize the bookshelf near the stairs. Had a copy of _Dorian Gray_ been missing when he'd descended? It was no use: he'd been much too distracted to make note of it on his way down.

It signified nothing, in any case. The simple fact was: Harry was gone.

He shoved yet another entry in the endless series of Carrow reports away, stood, and paced restlessly away from the desk. Forward, back, turn and around again, retracing his steps as he retraced his thoughts, moving because everything else was stagnating in a cesspool of unanswered questions, anxiety, and the inadmissible fear of once again facing the future utterly alone.

It was ridiculous and pathetic, this—this attachment of a starving mongrel to the first person who would feed it. It was _humiliating_. A violent jerk of his arm sent fire exploding from the banked fireplace, its heat flaring out to him from eight feet away. He picked up the book. He could send it to its fiery destruction with the magicless flick of his wrist. He imagined the precious pages writhe, blacken, and crumble away in the devouring flames, thereby allowing him to...to what? Deny for a little while longer the hollowness growing hour by hour beneath his breastbone? He stared into the fire, so rigid that he felt himself quivering. But in the end he laid the book carefully down again on his desk and bowed over it, breathing harshly.

"Severus."

Severus lifted his head slowly. Dumbledore had stood from his chair and now looked at him with the gentleness he associated with a dagger wrapped in velvet, much like the one which had pierced Harry's abdomen. "Not a word," he hissed.

Portrait Dumbledore was as inclined to heed him as his real-life counterpart. "If you are worried about Harry, why not send word to him? I am sure he would be glad to learn of your concern."

"I am not— I will _not_ —"

"'No' is a very important word in the English language, Severus, but sometimes it is even more important to know when to say 'yes.'"

"Because you know all about 'yes,' don't you, when you have never taken 'no' for an answer?" Severus spat. "Go back to sleep, old man, and leave me in peace."

Except that even when his portrait had fallen silent, Dumbledore's voice continued to chase him in memory. 

"Severus"—another occasion when Dumbledore's voice had been gentle enough to make him flinch. "—Will you not tell Harry the truth about your love for Lily Evans? Or, if you cannot, then allow me to do so?"

Oh yes, he remembered the occasion now. This, just days before he had sent Dumbledore's corpse arching backwards off the Astronomy Tower, not so long after Dumbledore had calmly informed him that a piece of the Dark Lord's soul lived within Harry. That Harry must sacrifice himself to save them all.

Severus had paused at the door of the office which was now his, clenching his hand to stop himself from reaching for his escape. "Headmaster," he snarled softly, "when you choose to exercise that power which allows you to manipulate me to your every whim, you might have the courtesy of not flaunting it."

Dumbledore's hand fell gently on his shoulder, and he stiffened. "My friend, I think it would be a great tragedy indeed if her son never knew of your regard for her. I have sworn to carry your secret to my grave, and I will not violate your trust. But will you not tell him yourself—of her, and of your childhood together, when the time is right? In some ways his own childhood was not so dissimilar. I think he would understand."

"And what purpose would that serve?" Severus gritted out.

"Purpose? Yes, I suppose—it is my hope that it will ease some of the pain her memory brings you. It has been fifteen years. Time cannot heal all wounds, but people—we—can help each other to—"

Severus jerked away from Dumbledore's touch. "You want James Potter's son to grant me absolution for killing his parents? The suggestion is grotesque." He drew himself up stiffly, pulling the remnants of his pride around him like a tattered cloak so that he would not curse the old wizard into oblivion. Or weep. One or the other. 

"Severus." Dumbledore's voice was quiet; it was his inexorable will that drew Severus back. Dumbledore's blue eyes pierced him, held him fast. "We do not have much time left to prepare him."

"Prepare him? He was younger than you or I or even, I daresay, the Dark Lord when the Thestrals became visible to him. He has known battle and betrayal since his first year at this school. He has been hunted by monsters and survived them. He has endured cruelty both great and small his entire life, yet emerged with his humanity unscathed. If he were a sculpture, he would be hailed as your greatest masterpiece. But that, of course, would be too crude a metaphor to make in polite society, however accurate. And now you tell me that it was you I should have protected him from all the while. Explain to me, Dumbledore, why that does not surprise me. I have kept him safe for her sake, in her memory. Now you ask me to lead him to his own death while telling me that I should bare my soul to him. Exculpation from a martyr: you always were a romantic." He laughed wildly. "Well, I've changed my mind. If this world cannot be saved without sacrificing him to the flames, then it is not a world worth saving. Do you hear me, Dumbledore? You go too far!"

"You would allow this long war to go on killing people? Allow Lord Voldemort to reign supreme?" Dumbledore asked gravely. "Did you not pledge yourself to its end?"

He opened his mouth and closed it again, shaking. When he finally trusted himself enough to speak, he managed: "I pledged my own life, not his. I will _not_ give his. I refuse!"

Though he spat out the words with a ferocity that tore his throat, he could not tell whether they were uttered in defiance or pleading.

Dumbledore answered, "There is nothing for you to refuse, Severus. That particular decision is not yours, but his. What is up to you is what you may do to make it easier for him."

Severus barked a guttural sound that was not a laugh. "Make it easier for him...to destroy himself? I'm afraid, Headmaster, that is a talent I must reserve for myself." It was not Dumbledore's impassiveness which made him want to tear out the old wizard's throat with his bare hands, Severus thought, but the compassion behind it. The incomprehensible illogic of the fact that there was no contradiction between the impassiveness and the compassion.

"You have used me. I have been your spy, your assassin, your dog; at times I have wondered if my soul might not have been less besmirched in the Dark Lord's employ, because at least then I would have come by my crimes honestly. I begrudged you nothing, for that was your right. I surrendered that right to you fifteen years ago. But you will not use me for this. Do you hear me? I will not be party to you leading Potter ignorant and eager to his death!"

"My dear Severus," Dumbledore said softly, very gravely, "it seems I have underestimated you. I did not realize how much you have come to care for him, though you go to great lengths to deny it."

Severus grabbed his empty teacup from Dumbledore's desk and hurled it against the fireplace. "How dare you? How dare even you to presume that you can read my soul like one of your twisted lumps of silver?" 

Dumbledore didn't even glance at the cup as it shattered into a hundred glistening shards of white china. Instead his eyes held Severus trapped, naked. "Would you give your life for his, Severus?"

Severus stopped utterly still. My life is of no consequence—I have been a pawn to be maneuvered to your will for the last fifteen years. What value could you or I possibly attach to it now? Those were the words he longed to fling back into Dumbledore's face. But the question had been asked so solemnly, each word weighed with such care, that he could only stand there for a moment, breathing raggedly in a vortex of fury and fathomless fear.

In the end, he uttered the only truth he could: "Yes."

"After all these years..." Dumbledore murmured, as if to himself. And he smiled at Severus with such pride that Severus was forced to look away.

A _pop_ of Apparition dragged Severus' thoughts back to the present, and his heart stuttered.

Knocking on the door woke Harry from a restless doze, and he tossed out a brief, "Come in!"

The door opened a crack, and Hermione poked her bushy head inside. "Harry! Welcome home!"

Harry smiled. "Oof, you found me. What gave me away?" Hiding a wince, he lifted himself very slowly into a sitting position and hoped Hermione wouldn't notice the sweat he could feel beginning to bead on his forehead.

Hermione looked over his blanket-bundled form searchingly and frowned as she conjured a chair. "I saw Kreacher searching for pain potions down in the lab—he said you're sick? Are you all right?" 

"'Course I am, right as rain," he assured her cheerfully. "Just, you know, zigged when I should've zagged, ha-ha."

"Right as rain, huh? Funny, the Harry I know wouldn't be caught dead in bed in the middle of the day."

"Well, you know, old age and laziness comes to us all, _etc cetera_."

She crossed her arms. "So what really happened?"

"I messed up and got stabbed in the stomach," Harry sighed.

"WHAT?!" Hermione shrieked. "Why are you here and not in hospital?"

Harry didn't bother to hide his wince that time. "A little louder, please; I don't think the nonagenarian in Number Sixteen Grimmauld Place heard you."

"Harry!" Hermione huffed.

"I saw a Healer and got better," Harry evaded. "All I need now is some bed-rest. Which I am getting. See? Look at me in bed and resting. Wrapped in a comforter and comfy as an occamy in a teakettle." He patted his comfortered chest gingerly. "No shenanigans for at least a week, no siree. So tell me all the exciting news from around here. What'd I miss?"

Hermione eyed him suspiciously but gave in to the change in topic. "Well, Kingsley said he might have a lead on someone who can help us locate Azkaban Two, which is supposedly where they're sending the Muggle-born now that Azkaban is being reserved for Undesirables and Enemies of the Ministry. This is top-secret, though, so you didn't hear it from me."

"Didn't hear a thing," Harry nodded. "I'm in a coma right now. Harper's heard rumors of it too, actually, but she's a bit more skeptical. Her contacts at the Ministry couldn't confirm that A2 even exists."

"You've talked to Harper recently?" Hermione looked surprised.

"Yeah, I've been going along with her teams on smaller missions when I can. They've lost a couple of people to McLaggen, which is too bad. I like Harper—she's a good commander. Smart, competent, resourceful, adaptable, and she cares about both her people and the people she's helping. It's a fucking travesty she hasn't made at least Deputy Head Auror by now."

"I feel like I shouldn't be cynical enough to say that that's not at all surprising, but I'm learning that it's not at all surprising," Hermione grimaced. "And other teams have been losing people to McLaggen, too. People want to fight back."

"Yeah, I understand the impulse. 'Eternal Glory,'" he quoted mockingly. "Anyone who tries to make war seem glamorous ought to be forced to care for curse-victims at St. Mungo's for a week. This is one instance where a good offense doesn't make a good defense."

"What if they could, though—defeat Lord Thingy?" Hermione wondered. "There are a lot more people fighting him this time than the last, right? If he's killed before you manage to destroy all the Horcruxes—what happens then?"

"He becomes a spirit again, I assume, and basically invincible."

"To Western magic. But what about people like those Japanese exorcists you encountered?"

"Huh." Harry's brain stalled for a bit. What _would_ happen if they attempted an exorcism on Voldemort's disincorporated spirit? "They couldn't exorcise the Horcrux out of me..."

"True..." Hermione's face fell.

"Still, if I could find one, it'd certainly be worth it to ask."

"Oh!" Hermione's face lit up with excitement. "Tonks knows one! She's not a Japanese exorcist, though—she's a Chinese Spiritual Cultivator."

"There's a Chinese Spiritual Cultivator here in the UK?"

"Yeah," Hermione confirmed, then remembered, "Maybe former? She left her clan a long time ago, from what I gathered."

"Can you ask Tonks to come find me whenever she gets back?" Harry requested, then yawned hugely. "Sorry."

"I'll tell her when I see her," Hermione confirmed, standing. "Rest, Harry. I'll bring you lunch."

"Thanks Hermione, I don't know what I'd do without you," Harry grinned.

"Get stabbed in the stomach, apparently," she tossed over her shoulder tartly as she left and closed the door behind her.

Well, she wasn't wrong. Harry sighed and closed his eyes. The memory from two nights ago still looping incessantly in the back of his mind immediately pulled him back in as if it were attached to a broken Time-Turner.

Severus had started sending Winky with most of his daily regiment of potions since he'd requested the move to the Headmaster's quarters, and he'd wondered if he had offended the man somehow. More likely Harry had put him seriously behind in his work, and he was trying to catch up again; Harry reminded himself firmly not to act like a needy whiny teenager sick at home with dragon pox. 

Severus still visited him around lunchtime, though, to personally inspect the healing process, reapply topical salves, and re-bandage the wound with clean gauze. What Harry hadn't realized at the time was that there'd been some sort of poison or venom on the knife-blade which had prevented coagulation and caused additional hemorrhaging in his intestines. Which...honestly, he was glad he hadn't known and might have preferred to have never known. In hindsight he was very thankful his healing magic was so basic that he hadn't even been tempted to try to pull the knife out immediately, because he'd probably have bled out right there on the dusty floor of Tomes and Scrolls. And if he'd managed to extract the blade on the stairs and Apparated, getting Splinched would probably have been the least of his problems.

Desperate to make conversation and keep Severus a little longer, Harry remarked, eyeing the slender leaf-green bottle in the other wizard's hand, "I think I stole that exact bottle from your office after the war."

Severus straightened in his chair and furrowed his brow lightly. "Why?"

"Um..." Oh, now he remembered why that was a topic he should probably have avoided, about forty-five seconds too late. "I, ah, used it to store your memories. It seemed disrespectful to keep them in one of Hermione's specimen vials."

Severus looked away. "I would have assumed you'd have flushed them down the drain."

"I could never have done that," Harry protested. "They were—" he coughed out the sudden obstruction in his throat, "very precious to me. I cast an unbreakable charm on the bottle and kept it next to my Order of Merlin for years. Then one day Albus had a tantrum—I think he was around five or so—and broke all the glass in the house with wild magic. I was devastated." 

Severus stood and retreated to the fireplace, where he stared into the flames with hooded eyes. "You said that I left you memories of your mother." The hunched form of his shoulders spoke his pain more viscerally than any words could.

Harry felt his heart thump heavily. "You did. You gave me a glimpse of your childhood together. It was...one of the kindest things anyone ever did for me. Nobody talks about her, even those who knew both of my parents. It was always about my dad. Especially Sirius, but Remus too. I don't know why."

"Did Petunia never...?" Severus asked, his face turned away from Harry.

"No. She told me my parents died in a car crash. She resented them when they were alive, and resented them even more for saddling her with me when they died."

Severus whirled to stare at him. "She told you Lily died in a car crash?"

Harry shook his head briefly at the look in Severus' eyes. "Severus, listen. It's all in the past now. Let it go. You don't have to say anything about her if you don't want to. I've made my own peace with never knowing her; I think every child who loses a parent too young has to, one way or another, or we'll drive ourselves mad with the hurt and the unfairness of it."

Severus closed his eyes. "I'm sorry. I cannot talk about her. She was the most precious thing in my life, and I..."

"Severus—" Harry said tentatively after a moment of silence, wanting to touch him and unable to move across the distance.

"Don't." The single word was heavy as a boulder, and Harry stopped at the finality in it.

After a moment of floundering he ventured, "It wasn't just about my mum, the loss I felt when I lost your memories—it was about you, too. I looked for you for a long time after the war. "

Severus opened his eyes. "Why? You said you saw me die."

"I—" Harry's breath caught. He still walked them in dreams sometimes, the sleepy villages and bustling towns he had touched in his crisscrossing search across the country. "We never found your body, when we went back for it after Lord Thingy's death. And then Scorpius came into this timeline to find you still alive—I thought maybe you could still be out there in mine, somewhere. "

Severus bowed his head so that his hair fell forward and hid his expression. "When I first  
installed myself in the castle after becoming Headmaster, a house-elf came to see me. She called herself Winky. She explained that she had formerly belonged to the noble House of Crouch and now belonged to no one. She begged me to bind her to my service. I did so with the words wizards have used to enslave the elves for centuries. In return, I demanded of her a promise: that upon my death she would retrieve my body from wherever it might be, consign it to the flames, take my ashes as far out to sea as she was able, and scatter it so that no one will ever find them. I swore her to absolute secrecy."

Back in his bedroom at Grimmauld Place, Harry picked up the empty green bottle from his nightstand and cradled it in his hands, remembering how often he had simply held it like this after the war, quietly drawing comfort from the swirling misty strands within. He had never bought his own Pensieve; the pull of the memories had been too strong, and he'd known that he would have spend his days watching them over and over again like a fully-immersive Mirror of Erised if he could.

Tears splashed with tiny plops onto translucent glass and slipped through his fingers. _Why do I feel like my heart is breaking?_

_Because you loved him. You're in love with him. And you never allowed yourself to grieve for him, not truly._

_Oh._

_How could you not have known?_

_How is it that you do?_

_Because I'm in love with him too, dammit!_

_Oh._

_Oh. Bloody hell._

Two house-elves stood in front of Severus and looked up at him with four pairs of great big tennis-ball eyes. One wore a knitted cap jauntily askew, a white sheet, and colorful mismatched socks, the other a snowy tea towel embroidered with the Black family crest. 

The younger elf bowed low. "I is the free-elf Dobby, Headmaster sir, and this is Kreacher of the House of Black. We serve Harry Potter, and we is here to help you because Harry Potter said Headmaster sir needs sleep."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this week fell on an angsty chapter instead of a fun one. If you're a ball of pervasive anxiety right now, I'm right there with you, huddled in front of my keyboard and trying not to let my nervousness spew all over the keyboard. Thank you for being here and traveling with me in our shared imaginary world, at least for a little while. Please be well in the real world, wherever you are.


	40. Chapter 40

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not a zero-sum game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After all the internal (and possibly external) screaming, interminable hours glued to the news waiting for Nevada to release one more drop (get back to work from the slots already XD!) *shout out to my friend from Las Vegas/Clark county who assured me that they got this!*, tears, and laughter, thank you for being here! ♥ 
> 
> There's a lot of hard, likely thankless work ahead, but here's to a new day in the USA! — Nov. 9, 2020
> 
> Please see the end notes for specific warnings for this chapter.

It would not be unfair to say that Harry spent most of his next few days at Grimmauld Place moping, though one could certainly make the argument that it might be more accurately described as an average of two mutually perturbing but not quite meshed emotional states, one "ruminating" and the other "borderline depressed with a dash of obsessive-compulsive memory-looping of his time spent doing paperwork with Severus, or competing with Severus to see who could come up with the most outrageous rumors, or dueling with Severus, or Severus stroking his hair... (i.e. pining)."

_I am not pining! And 'ruminating?' Like hell you're_ ruminating.

_Do we need to check a dictionary?_

_Too bad you don't have that magically-interfaced implant anymore, either. And it hurts too much to get up._

_It barely hurts at all anymore._

_You must be lacking a couple of nerve connections._

_Speaking of nerve connections...weren't you formally objecting to Severus' nose a mere month ago?_

_How does that relate to nerve connections in any way? And a lot can happen in a month._

_Like...?_

_Being treated as his equal doesn't hurt. And the duel, that happened. And not having to call myself 'Harry Potter the Once-Gutted, Now One-Armed Warlock.' And the way he put his hand on my forehead. And the way he looks at me, like his entire soul has turned towards me and is just waiting for me to recognize it. And the way his fingers curled around that green bottle, like our description of it made it precious. And—_

_Right, got it. So I'm not unduly influencing you...?_

_Wow, I do grow up to be a sanctimonious prick, don't I?_

_I thought we've already established that._

_How much does it matter, when you are me?_

_Urg. I have no idea, really._

_"Two mutually perturbing but not quite meshed emotional states," remember? You influence me, I influence you, it's not a zero-sum game. Maybe you're in love with Severus because I'm in love with Severus and not the other way around. Or maybe it's one of those exponential things._

They both ruminated on this for a while, but really it was like trying to look into two mirrors reflecting each other into infinity. 

_So when can we go back to Hogwarts?_

_When we get this whole 'being in love' situation under control._

_Oh, right, let me know how that goes. Aren't you old enough to know that there's no cure for love?_

_I'll settle for 'being able to work with Severus in a rational manner that in no way leads to an assault on his comfort or personal space.'_

_Yeah, good luck with that._

_And this is why we can't go back to Hogwarts yet._

Therefore: moping.

Hermione, being the amazingly intuitive friend she was, visited him often with distraction, which meant that Dean and Luna soon did too. Remus and Tonks sat with him when they were in. So, surprisingly, did Percy, though his idea of distraction leaned rather heavily towards picking Harry's brain for his extensive on-the-ground knowledge of the UK and Ireland. Harry wondered if Moody, whom he'd yet to catch a glimpse of, had put Percy up to it; then he decided it didn't really matter, since he was willing to help the Order in any capacity he could.

It was good to be back, though another part of him missed his routine with Severus with a persistent aching hollowness. He hoped that with the help of Dobby and Kreacher in addition to Winky the other wizard was at least getting some sleep.

The trilling of his mobile echoed shrilly through a dream-labyrinth built of thorny copses of white rose, and Harry ran towards it without a care for the trails of blood blossoming across his skin. He rounded a corner and saw it suspended in the center of a blue-glowing Triwizard Cup. He reached for it—and jerked awake just before his fingers could make contact.

He lay still for a moment, stunned by the reality of that unexpected sound in the empty darkness of his room. Then he frantically summoned the device to his hand, wondering if Severus needed his help, if he was in trouble, or if, perhaps, he was simply missing Harry as much as Harry was missing him...

His heart sank when he saw the unrecognized number on the screen. A wrong number or a prank call? If Death Eaters had caught on to their use of Muggle technology they had bigger problems on their hands. Nevertheless...

"Hullo?" he answered tentatively.

"Harry?" said a thin tinny voice on the other side, unenhanced by magic.

His mind blanked for a moment. Who...? Then he recognized it: "Sol!"

"Harry, I... Thank you for answering. I-I need your help. Can I...still take you up on your offer? To stay with you?"

"Yeah, of course," Harry assured them swiftly, heart beginning to race. "Are you hurt or in immediate danger?"

"No..." But there was uncertainty in their tone.

"All right, give me your address." Sol did so: a flat on the edges of Soho, and he jotted it down. "I'll be there in fifteen," he promised.

He noted the time on his phone: 4:07 AM. He took a moment to breathe and let joy, relief, and worry course through him. After everything, he could hardly believe that Sol would be the one to initiate contact. _Would_ Harry be able to help them? He would certainly try, whatever Sol's situation.

But there was, of course, another consideration: Harry couldn't afford to assume that everything was as it appeared. He'd been reminded of that quite emphatically enough lately, thank you.

He got out of bed, moving carefully, and transformed his pajamas into a t-shirt, jacket, and loose trousers. Thank Merlin for magic, because he really didn't want to deal with trying to struggle into and out of clothes right now. The shiny new skin which had finally grown over his wound was still fragile, and he feared that any sudden movement would tear it anew.

"Harry?" Hermione lifted her head from the book she was reading on the kitchen table, and he was reminded of a similar early morning mere months ago. She had grown by leaps and bounds under Moody's tutelage, and he could see in her new experience and confidence hints of the warrior Scorpius had shown him. Though let it, by Merlin and all the mutely shining stars in the sky, never come to that.

"Couldn't sleep?" he inquired softly.

"I've been waking up around three for the past few days in a row, I'm not sure why," she responded, equally soft. "Sometimes I can go back to sleep and sometimes I can't. I thought, since Kreacher's away, I'd read for a bit and then get coffee and breakfast started. Somehow this room feels more welcoming than the library. Isn't that odd?"

"For you? Very," Harry grinned. "But I wouldn't be surprised if you're picking up unwelcoming vibes from some of the books on dark magic, especially the ones that've belong to the Blacks for generations; they tend to be unfriendly."

She nodded. "Did something happen? Should you be out of bed?"

"I got a call from Sol. I'm going to go pick them up. Will you come with me? I could use your help."

"Of course." She jumped up and tied back her hair. "What's the situation?"

"They're in Soho." He handed her the address. "They said they're not in immediate danger, but I don't want to charge in without checking things out first."

"Caution from Harry James Potter?" she teased. "Who would've thunk?"

It was amazing what change in perspective seeing someone holding your innards in his hands could achieve, especially when the unmentionably mundane act of pissing was still painful enough to cause him to break out into a cold sweat, he thought ruefully.

They Apparated into a narrow alley between two tall apartments across the street from the address Sol had given him, from where they could see the back of the red-brick building itself. It was immediately obvious that something was amiss. Two police cars each were parked in front and in back, blue and red lights flashing. A small thin figure strapped onto a gurney was being wheeled into an ambulance, and for a horrified moment Harry spotted Sol's delicate features and dark curls. But no: the headlights of the foremost police car illuminated the prone figure fully for a moment, and Harry saw that it was a pale-skinned woman with straight shoulder-length chestnut hair and a darkening bruise over one cheekbone.

Already Disillusioned, Harry and Hermione cautiously crossed the street. The back entrance to the building had been propped open. Two pairs of police officers were checking their equipment, getting ready to enter. "The call came from flat 529," one of them informed the others. "Suspected drug activity. Possibly armed. "

That was the flat number Sol had given them. "Come on," Harry whispered, and they sneaked quietly past. The elevators were too much in the officers' line-of-sight to risk. They went up the stairs, which Harry managed to survive only with a judiciously-applied levitation charm. 

Number 529's door was plain, exactly the same as the others in the florescent-lit corridor. Harry stretched out his senses, probing carefully for magic. "Clear." Hermione unlocked the door with a murmured, "Alohomora," and stayed behind while he slipped inside. 

His heart nearly stopped when he saw the bodies on the carpeted floor and the dirty leather couch. Then he heard someone roll over, someone else make a quiet snuffling sound, and realized that he was looking at people sleeping or stoned, not dead. 

He heard two unfamiliar male voices arguing from behind a closed bedroom door and wondered if he should look for Sol there. Then he saw movement—someone sitting against the far wall lifted their head to stare straight in his direction. Sol's blank eyes were red-rimmed and much too large in a face that seemed stripped of all flesh, their hair tangled and matted, their skin the unhealthy bleached white of someone who had not felt the touch of the sun in entirely too long. Harry dismissed his Disillusionment. As he started to make his way to Sol, they warned, low, "Look out for needles."

Harry looked down and picked his path more carefully, winding through a maze of discarded wrappers, professional-looking tourniquets, belts, pieces of clothing, condoms, scorched spoons still grimed with residue, glass pipes of all shapes and sizes, and yes, what looked like accidentally-dropped needles, both clean and dirty. He levitated those that he spotted onto the coffee table alongside several other such discarded implements, figuring that if anyone was awake to see him, they'd probably attribute it to a drugged-induced hallucination.

He finally reached Sol and held out his hand. "Can you stand?"

Sol considered this question for several seconds. Then they nodded and allowed Harry to pull them to their feet. Harry kept hold of their hand as they swayed. 

"I wasn't sure if you'd come. Harry, they just tossed her into the dumpster when she overdosed like she was nothing but trash. I called 999," Sol babbled. "I can't do this anymore. Will you help me? Please?"

Harry pulled Sol gently into a hug as they began to cry. "I'm here, Sol. I'll help you any way I can. I saw the ambulance on the street. They got to her in time. She'll be all right. You probably saved her life."

"I sold your phone. And your cloak. I'm sorry," Sol sobbed.

Harry squeezed as tightly as he dared before drawing back. "It's all right. I've got you. Come on."

There was a violent crash from inside the closed bedroom door as they passed by, and Sol flinched. "I'm telling ya, we gotta get outta here! They're on to us! Some little fuck must've snitched!"

Harry turned and shot a locking spell at the door. Let these sociopaths be served their just deserts when the police got here.

"Hermione," Harry murmured to thin air as he closed the flat door behind himself and Sol, "we're ready. Can you Apparate us home?"

Hermione appeared next to him. "The police are coming up," she said softly, taking Harry's hand. "Hi Sol, I'm sorry we weren't properly introduced last time. I'm Hermione Granger, Harry's friend. May I?" 

Sol placed their hand in Hermione's without hesitation. "I'm very pleased to meet you properly, Hermione," they said with the automatic politeness of someone who'd had manners drilled into them from earliest childhood. "Thank you for your help."

They winked back into existence a moment later at Grimmauld Place. Percy was on cell duty. His expression tightened when he saw them, but he said nothing as he opened the gate for them.

"Urg," Sol moaned. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

"I'll get the tea started," Hermione chirped, disappearing up the stairs with alacrity.

Harry sat Sol down on the bottom step and conjured a basin before sliding very carefully to a seat next to them.

"I hate Wizarding travel," Sol groaned when they finally finished voiding the contents of their stomach. 

Harry handed them a glass of water. "Hah. You and me both. You'd think someone would invent a better way of getting around than squeezing all your bits through a drinking-straw-sized tear in space."

Sol snorted in agreement. They rinsed their mouth out several times before drinking. Harry vanished the basin.

"You want to go to bed? People are going to be up soon, but you don't have to meet them until you're ready." The raised-eyebrow look that Sol gave him, containing just a hint of their usual mischief, made him huff out a soft laugh. "You know what I mean."

Sol looked down and smiled a little. "Yeah. Thanks for all of this, Harry. I thought for sure you'd hang up on me. If I hadn't caught a glimpse of you that day in front of that weird bookstore in Soho, I don't think I'd have had the courage to call you at all."

"In front of A.Z. Fell's?" Harry asked, surprised.

"Yeah. I've never seen them open for business; I have no idea how they survive. Maybe they run a meth lab in the basement or something."

"I-I'm not so sure that they don't," Harry almost fell over laughing. "Owwww, please don't make me laugh," he groaned when he could breathe again.

"Are you hurt?" Sol demanded, frowning at the hand pressed against his aching belly.

"Um, tell you later," Harry temporized. He leveraged himself upright with a palm on Sol's shoulder. "Come on, let's find you a room."

Sol insisted on taking the Vow before dropping onto their new bed for a long nap. Hermione performed the part of witness. Later, after a long shower, they joined everyone at breakfast, where Harry and Hermione introduced them and briefly stated their preferred pronouns. There were a few nonplussed or curious looks, but everyone smiled at them and said hullo. Everyone, that is, except for Percy, who kept his head buried in his toast.

"So, ah, Sol, any chance you caught last night's game?" Ted inquired, always eager to find out how his team had done. Sometimes someone remembered to bring back a paper with the latest scores (usually Tonks), but not for a couple of days now (since Tonks seemed to be coming home later and later these days).

"Game?" Sol asked, bewildered.

"Football," Harry supplied as Ted deflated a bit. "Ted's a big Millwall fan."

"Oh. Um, I think they won against Watford?" 

"What about West Ham?" Dean eagerly butted in.

"Win against Bolton Wanderers?" Sol supplied after a moment of thought.

"Yes!" Dean pumped his fist in the air. "That moves them up 5-5." He and Ted launched into a detailed discussion of players and stats that instantly lost the rest of the table, but Sol had gained two fans.

Harry nudged them. "Didn't know you were into football."

Sol responded _sotto voce_ , "I'm not, but Ian and Tommy were, back at the flat. That's all they ever did, watch telly and go out for supplies."

Harry snorted in disbelief. Even sociopathic drug dealers needed hobbies, he supposed.

Sol made it through breakfast, but barely. By the time they got back to their room—the one that had belong to Regulus, next to Harry's—they were sweating and shaking. They went straight for the loo and slammed the door. Harry winced and walked slowly back down for tea. He was sweating a little himself when he returned with a tray and his mokeskin pouch to see Sol curled around themselves on the wide bed.

"Harry, do you have some of that pain potion you offered me last time?" they forced through gritted teeth, rigid fingers clawing into their stomach. "I could really use some right now."

Harry sat down on the bed next to them and placed a steadying hand on their shoulder. "I do, but first I want to ask you a question. I'm sorry, I should have done this earlier. I have a potion that will flush the drugs out of your system in three days. It doesn't cure addiction, but you'll be done with the physical withdrawal symptoms. The catch is that you can't take anything else: neither potions nor Muggle painkillers. It could react very badly with them."

Sol's harsh panting filled the room as they considered, eyes tightly shut. Finally they gasped, "Fine, give it to me. I'll take three days of hell over six months of misery."

"Are you sure?" Harry felt compelled to ask.

"Just give me the damn potion!" Sol snarled.

Sol propped themselves up on one arm as Harry uncorked the small bottle for them. They took the potion down in one long swallow and then gagged, coughed, and muttered, "What the hell was in that thing, flesh-eating slugs stewed in old engine oil?"

Harry was about to quote Severus on the inverse relationship between recklessness and potioneers' motivation to come up with tasty potions when Sol flung themselves off the bed and darted back into the loo.

On second thought, probably not helpful.

"Ugh," Sol emerged twenty minutes later and crawled onto the bed to lie on their side facing Harry. "So tell me how you got hurt. I need distraction."

Harry rolled his eyes but lifted up his shirt briefly to show Sol the scar. "Stabbed in the stomach with a poisoned dagger. I was trying to talk one of my old schoolmates around, he wasn't impressed."

Sol winced. "You mean there exists someone in the world who's immune to the all-conquering charm of Harry Potter?"

"Many," Harry returned dryly. "Plus he thinks I killed his father. Or maybe desperately wants to think I did."

"Did you?" Sol asked curiously.

Harry raised his eyebrows at them. "No. D'you think I'm capable of it?"

Sol considered for a moment, lids falling to half-mast. "You're fighting a war, and you want to take on the Dark Lord," they pointed out, "so yeah, I'm kinda hoping you are. Plus, since I'm here, there's a good chance my life will depend on the answer at some point, so: are you capable of killing?"

Harry exhaled. At least this was one answer backed by experience, for better or worse. "In a kill-or-be-killed situation, yes."

"Good. I hope you don't take too long when it comes time to decide." Sol's eyes closed, and they were silent for so long Harry thought they'd fallen asleep. But they continued dreamily, "Everyone talks a good game about the sanctity of life, but eventually you realize that it's always their own lives they mean, or the lives of people like them. Who sanctifies the lives of the others?—the junkies, the broken and unwanted, the losers, washouts, fuck-ups? The rubbish like us...?"

"Sol..." Harry touched their hair, and when they pressed closer, began to stroke it gently.

"She had a kid, you know—Emily, the woman you saw. She didn't want him. It was her step-dad's, but her mum didn't believe her. Wouldn't believe her. She got thrown out of the house. She couldn't take care of him on her own. One night he just stopped breathing, or maybe she forgot to feed him when she got high and lost track of the time—she didn't know, didn't want to, erased the memory and then couldn't get it back no matter how hard she tried. I'm not sure she would've cared if she'd died from her overdose. Maybe I was being cruel instead of kind when I called the ambulance..."

As Sol fell into a doze, Harry wondered, not for the first time, if the International Statute of Secrecy was now doing more harm to Wizardkind than good. To isolate themselves from their fellow human beings—to look down on them as if from a great rarefied height without acknowledging that they themselves were equally flawed, equally adrift—there was a cost to the soul of their society that could not be easily quantified. A cost in compassion, uncounted miles lost along the great moral arc... Already the collaborative and narrative spaces of the rest of humanity were beginning to move forward at the speed of the Internet, and they were being left behind...

What would happen if they could repeal the Statute and reveal themselves, work together with Muggles to avert the great tragedies of that other timeline—the wars, the pandemics, the rising oceans and storm- and fire-ravaged land? Or was it inevitable that without the wisdom imparted by hindsight—the disasters averted, the lives saved—Muggles would always turn on Wizardkind in the end?

Where was the line between kindness and cruelty? Did those words have any meaning at all on the level of history and nations and the survival of a people? And even here...had he been cruel or kind to pull Sol back into the Wizarding world—a place that had already callously rejected them? What right did he have?

Maybe no right, Harry thought as Sol pressed their head trustingly against his hand. Maybe only mutual need, mutual caring. Could that be enough?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Drug abuse/addiction
>   * Drug withdrawal
> 

> 
> I actually looked up those football (soccer) scores, lol!


	41. Chapter 41

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry causes a head explosion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the end notes for specific warnings for this chapter.

The next three days were as harrowing as any Harry had lived through in his life, and he couldn't even imagine what it was like for Sol, who practically moved into the loo. For a period of seventy-two hours they threw up anything that passed through their lips, including water, and endured cramps so painful Harry put up silencing spells so the screams wouldn't disturb the rest of the house. At least they stopped begging Harry to take them back to the flat in Soho after the first twenty-four, though the very creative threats to various parts of his anatomy continued past the second day. He could only grit his teeth through the feeling of helplessness and stay close, offering what little comfort he could.

At the end of it all Harry felt as if they'd survived a siege from a vicious and particularly relentless demon. They dropped into a deep healing sleep toppled over each other like exhausted puppies. 

Some unknown time later Harry blinked awake to find his left arm commandeered by Sol as a pillow and shooting pins and needles. His efforts to extract it jostled Sol awake, who looked incredibly young as they blinked slowly in confusion.

"What?" they whispered.

"My arm's asleep," Harry answered softly.

They obligingly lifted their head before settling sweetly into Harry's shoulder. Both of his boys had tended to grow impatient with physical affection, but his Lily had been the opposite, always happy to sit close and snuggle even after she'd become a mother herself. A pang of longing hit him hard. What would happen when he died in this reality? Was there a way for Death to take him back? Or was he divided from his children forever? 

"Harry...?" Sol's voice pulled him away from his thoughts.

"How are you feeling?" Harry asked, pushing away the memories to center himself squarely in the here-and-now.

"Like I've puked out about five years of my life but would probably choose to do it again to feel this good—this _normal_."

Harry smiled a little. Merlin, Severus was amazing. "I'm kinda hoping there won't be a next time."

Sol nodded solemnly. "Me too."

"Wanna sleep a bit more?"

"No, I'm awake. Is there still tea?"

"Mmm." Harry had no idea whether or not there was still tea, or even when he'd last left the room. He struggled upright and waved his hand to draw aside the curtains. The hazy, diffused quality of the light suggested that it was late afternoon drawing towards evening. "Ooooh, there is tea!" And still at exactly the right temperature—magic was spectacularly nice sometimes. He poured each of them a cup.

Harry had to struggle hard not to start laughing as he sipped, because when Sol drank tea, they looked exactly like Draco did—fingers held just so with pinkie sticking out. He wondered if there was a grungy old book of manners all the little children from Pure-blood families had to memorize.

"What?" Sol looked askance at his grin.

"Nothing."

"What?" they insisted.

"Nothing," Harry chuckled. "Just that you were probably unbearably precocious and adorable when you were a kid."

"I'm unbearably precocious and adorable now," Sol huffed, narrowing their eyes. They placed their cup and saucer back on the nightstand and rested their chin on Harry's shoulder, staring into his face with their lovely variegated eyes, soft shades of green flecked with gold in the soft light.

"What?" Harry parroted, amused.

"I've done the life-flashing-before-my-eyes thing, now I'm ready for the shagging-like-bunnies part," they announced.

Harry spluttered and spat out some tea, the mental whiplash like his brain had just plowed into the ground from a failed Wronski Feint.

Sol fell over laughing.

Coughing, Harry moved his own tea things aside and dried himself. "Sol..."

"Don't tell me you don't wanna," Sol pouted. "You're seventeen, you're supposed to be up for it at the drop of a hat. And don't tell me you're straight either, because I won't believe you. A straight man would be running for the hills."

"Can't I be sex-positive and supportive of your having a satisfying and safe sex life without wanting to be an active participant?"

"Ugh, nobody your age can possibly be this—this—"

"Well-adjusted? Emotionally mature? Self-aware?" Harry suggested.

"Pedantic!" Sol burst out.

"About that..." Harry said. 

Much, much later Sol clutched their head in their hands and groaned, feeling like their brain was about to dribble out of their ears. "How come you didn't tell me any of this before? Reality this weird was not made to be handled sober!" Harry, apparently used to garnering this sort of reaction from his audience, only chuckled and went off to wrangle them some dinner, the little shit.

Who was supposedly divorced with _grand_ children. All Sol'd been looking for had been an uncomplicated celebratory shag, and instead they'd gotten multiple dimensions, Death, timeline-jumping, two souls stuffed into one body, and basically reality as they knew it flushed down the drain.

Because if there were souls—and Harry was apparently walking proof that there were—and there was an afterlife, then what the fuck were they all doing here? What was the point? Why didn't they all just hie off to paradise or nirvana or wherever and loll around with their forty virgins? Though Sol kinda preferred lovers with more experience. And maybe experience was the point? Where exactly did the forty virgins come from? Did they all die so young that they never got to shag anybody? And that was supposed to be paradise?

And what did it mean that Death apparently cared about the 'quality' of the souls it reaped? What was the quality of a soul? What was a soul, even, that unseeable, untouchable, unknowable abstraction you had no control over but which was both eternal and capable of being influenced by trivialities? How was it possible for anyone to not appear stunted next to a being who existed outside of time and space? Or ought that assumption be thrown into a black hole, too? What was the meaning of a soul if it was in actuality just a minuscule fragment of a infinite being spread across infinite universes? (You couldn't be finite if you existed in infinite universes, right?) But if you were infinite, then that meant there existed infinite versions of you, the saint-like and the evil incarnate and everything in-between, and again: what was the point? What were 'you?' Bloody hell, humankind hadn't even figured out the meaning of a single finitely-spanned lifetime yet, let alone the meaning of infinite lifetimes in infinite variations.

How could anyone's brains not dribble out of their ears after Harry had one of these talks with them? For that matter, how could _Harry's_ brains not be hanging out of his ears in globules of gray-and-white stuff? Sol decided to take a long shower.

"Hey, you all right there?"

"No, I am not! You just caused my head to explode, and you think food—" Sol's glare melted right off when the rich scent of fresh rolls, twice-baked potato skins nearly drowned in cheddar, and thick-cut slices of roast beef on a bed of fresh greens hit their nostrils. Well, they were a simple non-binary being. Existential questions with horrifying implications would probably appear less horrifying—or at least less urgent—on a full stomach.

Harry grinned, set a huge silver tray down between them, and handed Sol a plate. "Be glad you weren't here for the cheese sandwich days. Lucky for us, Ted's passion is cooking. Other passion, I should say."

As they ate sitting next to each other on the bed, Sol stared at Harry with unabashed fascination. So he actually was a hundred-year-old man in a teenager's body! That explained quite a lot. "Are all straight men of the future this flexible?" Sol wondered when Harry quirked an inquiring eyebrow at them.

"Hardly," Harry snorted. He nudged a buttery roll toward Sol's hand. "Eat. And I didn't say that I was straight, just that I was married."

"Hah! I knew you were attracted to me!" Sol smirked and chewed victoriously. They'd actually started doubting their queerdar for a minute there.

Harry huffed a laugh. "Fine, I'm attracted to you. Is that enough of an ego boost?"

"But you won't do anything about it! Why not?" They turned their best puppy-eyed look on Harry. It'd melted many a past potential lover into goo in their hands, but sadly Harry was made of sterner stuff.

He paused. "Because there's a difference between wanting someone and wanting to want someone. The kind of wanting that plays for keeps, I mean, which I think is what I need. Besides, attraction has a lot more layers than just the sexual."

"But I do want you!" Sol insisted, frustrated, then paused as well. "At least—if I could want anyone, it would be you."

"But that's not enough, is it?" Harry asked gently. "Not when there's someone you love more than you can bear."

Sol froze, their heart stuttering in their chest. "I...I don't know what you're talking about," they stammered.

"Am I wrong?" Sol had to look away from Harry clear gaze. "If I am, I'm sorry. It's just, in my other life, I walked probably more than a thousand miles searching for something that I couldn't even articulate to myself. And because I didn't really know what I was looking for, I didn't know when to stop, or how to seek a new way forward. I hurt some of the people who were closest to me, and pushed away those who loved me the most."

Did Harry do this to everybody? These sudden bursts of breathtaking sincerity that incinerated all your bullshit words before they could leave your mouth? There was a particular kind of courage in leaving all the irony behind; Sol, who'd learned to survive on irony as if it could fill in all the echoing spaces of their missing magic, could not help but honor that.

"I've tried to move forward, and it just keeps hurting," they confessed. "Sometimes I think that if I could rip my heart out of my chest, I would."

Harry put aside his empty plate and leaned back again the headboard. "Tell me about him? Therios Selwyn?"

How long had it been since Sol had last heard the name? Since they'd run away so they'd never have to hear it again? An aching sort of pleasure reverberated in their chest like a long-held vibrato. "Why does it not surprise me you know his name?" they managed.

"Well," Harry replied slowly, "I do have to make it my business to know who's a danger to me and to the people who're fighting against Lord Thingy. His brother killed an Auror I know."

"Shit," Sol muttered. "Iacchus always was a fucking idiot. But Therios isn't like that." Their breath hitched. Just saying the name after so many years was still capable of upsetting the steady rhythm of their heartbeat. "He was the best person I knew." 

They clasped their arms loosely around their upraised knees and shifted to sit next to Harry against the headboard, pressing close against his right flank. Harry leaned towards them, freely offering warmth and comfort. "I told you I was your age when I left home. That was the winter after I met him. My parents had a large country house in Surrey, and I lived there with our old house-elf Loly after they died."

Quiet lonely days surrounded by their music and books. A beautiful oasis, it seemed to Sol now.

"Iacchus Selwyn was courting my cousin Artemisia at the time. I guess Uncle Corban wanted to impress the family, so he invited Iacchus and-and Therios to stay with himself and Artemisia at the house for the summer. I had no say in the matter, of course. I lived there at my uncle's sufferance, even though it belonged to my parents." They didn't bother to hide the bitterness that suffused their voice.

"Squibs are supposed to stay unheard and unseen, which suited me just fine, since I had no desire to meet any of them anyway. I had my own suite of rooms, so it was easy to stay out of their way. If any of them heard anything, my uncle could just claim it was a ghost.

I hated them all. The first few days, Iacchus would go into my library and leave my books lying around to try and impress Artemisia with his 'passion for reading.' They had guests almost every night, and poor Loly would slave all day to cook and clean after them.

After about two weeks of this I guess they got bored, so they decided to take a holiday in Ireland, do the midsummer festival rounds and all that. I thought I was finally going to have the house to myself again, except I didn't realize that Therios elected to stay behind."

Sol took a deep steadying breath.

"He heard me playing my violin the day after everybody else left, and he came up to my music room and just stood there watching me for I don't know how long. After I finished he commented, 'I didn't know the family ghost was a fan of Chopin.' And that just totally rubbed me the wrong way, so I shot back, 'I didn't know you inbred Pure-blood wizards grew enough brain cells to recognize Chopin.' If he were anybody else he'd probably have hexed me for that, but Therios just laughed and asked me to play something else. I told him to fuck off, and he invited me to have lunch in the village."

They smiled a little at that, at the fact that they'd once been capable of telling Therios to _fuck off_ instead of _stay; you've taught me the meaning of loneliness, and I'll only forgive you if you never leave._

"I didn't get to leave the estate much; I couldn't resist. We spent the entire day in the village eating lunch and exploring and then eating dinner together. He was so different to anybody I'd ever met before. He'd taken Muggle studies at Hogwarts, and he was as interested in Muggle books and music as I was. But mostly, he was the kindest person I'd ever met. Everyone else always treated me as defective somehow. Even...even my parents. I know they loved me, but I could never be the son they wanted me to be. Therios saw me as a complete person. Someone who didn't need magic to be whole.

In a single day I went from hating him and wanting him gone to craving his company. I wouldn't have minded playing my fingers to the bone just to be near him. He indulged me—like a younger sibling, I thought—and we would spent entire days together, sometimes just lying in the grass dozing or reading in the library together. 

One night we Apparated into Muggle London to see Hamlet by the Royal Shakespeare Company. We were both enraptured—neither of us had seen words on a page brought to life like that before. We talked about it for days afterwards.

Another time we went dancing at a Muggle club, and that was an eye-opening experience of a different sort. There were people all over him—mostly women, but some men, and he smiled at all of them. It fucking hurt. I wasn't even jealous, because there was no way I could compete against any of them, all those beautiful and sophisticated people. I thought he was there to find somebody to go home with, so I walked out and was trying to figure out how to navigate public Muggle transportation when he ran out after me.

I avoided him for days after that, but he was always patient with me. He never snapped back at me even when I sniped at him. I was too scared to admit what I wanted to either of us. But his brother and my uncle and cousin were coming back soon, and I couldn't bear to leave it like that, just let time carry away the connection between us like it meant nothing. So I told him. I told him that I worshiped the ground he walked on and that I wanted him in any way he would have me. And he told me that I was like nobody he'd ever met before and that he stood in awe of me. That I was beautiful."

They'd heard it often enough from others, later, to think that perhaps it was true—perhaps there was something in the accidental amalgamation of their father's bright eyes and high brow, their mother's delicate cheekbones and dark curls, to make them 'beautiful.' But nobody meant it in the same way Therios had, in the way that reached down so deep that the word seemed to describe their soul instead of just their body. No—that was wrong. Zephyr had, and they would always love her for it.

"The days that followed were pure bliss. We shared everything—food, clothes, sweat, tears, our bodies, our earliest memories. For the first time it didn't matter at all that I had no magic, because it didn't matter to him. I wanted to climb inside of him and never find my way back out. I became him and he became me."

How could they describe those twelve days except: for five years they had spent every day pushing away those memories for fear they would destroy them utterly, and today found every detail as pristine and vivid and breathtakingly precious as if no time had passed at all?

"Then everyone came back, and for a few days nothing much changed. Therios insisted that I be treated like the rest of the family, to eat with them and go with them to concerts or the theater if I wanted. But then Iacchus and Artemisia argued, and just like that the courtship was over, and Iacchus and Therios left. The next time I heard Therios' name it was the announcement of his engagement to Artemisia in the _Daily Prophet_. So I decided I'd had enough of wizards and ran away. Let them have it all; none of it was mine, anyway.

I would've happily stayed in the Muggle world except that not long before I met you, I received a copy of my parents' will. They had left everything to me, though Wizarding law decreed that all of it would go to Artemisia. All of it except a secret Gringotts vault which the law couldn't take away because nobody knows what's in it. That's why I've been trying to find a way in."

Sol ducked their head to blot away a tear, then another. Then they felt Harry's tentative touch and turned and buried their wet face against his shoulder. He held them tightly despite his still-healing wound. 

They'd tried to forget about Therios, truly they had. If Therios had wanted to be with them, he would be, and nothing would have stopped him: family, money, social mores—none of that would have mattered. But he hadn't come back for them, ergo...

When they'd left the Wizarding world behind, Sol had promised themselves that if they couldn't have Therios, then they would find someone just as good. There were millions of people in London alone: surely one or more of them would fit the bill. What they and Therios had had hadn't even been real; it had burned with the passion of a star falling to earth precisely because its time had been so limited. And yet it had been more real than anything else they'd managed to find in the past five years, though not for lack of attempting to fulfill that promise. They'd met many people, lots of them brilliant and unique and wonderful, but none of them quite right. 

Even then there'd never been anyone like Harry.

How was it possible for the Wizarding world to have produced someone like this?—a man to whom a lifespan of years had bequeathed purpose rather than cynicism, in whom power had instilled kindness and compassion rather than haughty entitlement, who held an old man's munificent patience in balance with a teenager's bright laugh and far-ranging wonder?

But Harry was too much, too good, and therefore too demanding of an answering goodness in you that you felt compelled to give even if you had to scratch open your veins to give it. Or was it the opposite?—the suspicion that someone with no visible flaws must have hidden ones buried deeply for a reason. Who believed a story like 'I lived another lifetime and came traipsing into this one on my deathbed to save the world?' Them, apparently; maybe Sol should congratulate themselves that their romantic soul had proved to be quite live and well. That was a danger of associating with lunatics, wasn't it—that they made you begin to question your own reality?

Then again, what was their reality? Drug addiction and rough-sleeping, outcast both to the society into which they'd been born and the one into which they'd escaped. Was it any wonder that there was a thrill to having been picked by Harry when he could point at anyone on a street corner and they'd eagerly follow him home? It was precisely that thrill that had driven them to run from Harry the first time, convinced of the futility of hero-worship and fearful of the emptiness that lay at the end of falling into that trap. Maybe it was a testament to the gravity of yearning Harry inspired in people that they'd memorized his number anyway, and called it in their extremity. 

And Harry had _answered_.

So if they couldn't fall in love with someone like Harry, what hope was there?

Harry didn't pull his arm away after their tears had stopped, and they took it as permission to lean back carefully against his warm chest. For some reason Sol always felt surprise at the fact that Harry was shorter than them—perhaps because he carried himself with that physical confidence that Sol had at first mistaken for the arrogance of a police officer or Auror (not without reason, as it turned out). 

"Sol—" Harry's voice, in contrast to Sol's thoughts, was full of hesitation, even nervousness. "There are two things I've learned since I last saw you that I think it's important for you to know—if you don't already—that have bearing on what you just told me. Should I tell you now, or later?"

Sol clearly heard the implied warning. They pulled away, took a deep breath, and squared their shoulders. "Now, please."

Harry's clear green eyes met theirs. "All right. The first is that there was no investigation into the incident that killed your parents. The official report was lifted directly from the Muggle one. It's not an uncommon practice, but is highly suspect given the circumstances." As Sol mentally reeled from that stark revelation, Harry dealt them the other sledgehammer blow: "The second is that I saw Therios Selwyn at King's Cross about three weeks ago. I think he's looking for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Drug withdrawal
> 



	42. Chapter 42

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bending with the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the end notes for specific warnings for this chapter.
> 
> Dear lovely readers, please bear with me for a short note. I'm a fan of languages and accents, but I'm also sensitive to how language (e.g. "proper" English = WASP English) is used to oppress. If you have any concerns about how they're used in this chapter or elsewhere in the story, please leave me a comment. If you have corrections, do please leave me a comment! As always, I'm open to your feedback and criticisms.

Cho stood at the top of the Astronomy Tower looking down. Above her, slate-gray skies stretched outward toward the horizon in unruffled blankness, slanting into darker tones as it descended. 

Dinner would be starting soon, and she would be expected at her customary seat by Cedric's side, punctual and tidy as befitting a representative of the Ministry. Except that she was so tired.... and surely another minute wouldn't hurt? She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the wind, wanting it to sweep into and through her, to carry away the fears and doubts that seemed to metastasize by the day.

As a small child she'd often dreamed of flying, of being able to ride the clouds like her hero the Monkey King of Chinese mythology. Silly, wasn't it? She could get on her broomstick and fly away, but where would she go? How would she live? How would she live with herself if she broke all her promises out of some selfish, childish desire to simply escape, leave everything behind? If you wanted to be the Monkey King, you had to have his brash bright courage: to fear neither humans nor monsters, neither Heaven nor Earth—and Cho feared everything.

Nobody came up here anymore except for classes. How strange to think that the world had ended with Dumbledore's death, and everyone simply carried on, including herself. Everyone knew that the Ministry was now ruled by Voldemort, yet people just kept their heads down and kept right on doing their jobs, afraid to make a peep lest their families trees were uprooted by the new Muggle-born Registration Commission. 

The old idiom 'bend with the storm lest you break' was as well-understood in Eastern cultures as it was in Western, and her family cleaved to it piously—but the storm had ravaged them nonetheless. 

Just yesterday Cedric had told her that they'd won her mother yet another delay in her trial, and though Cho knew she should be grateful (and she _was_ ; she was), she couldn't help but wonder how much more bending they could bear. 

The ground appeared very far from here, its certainties blurred into abstract unreality by distance and the blue-gray cloak of twilight. Cho had never been afraid of heights; every now and then her mother still told the story of Cho as a toddler climbing the old camphor tree in the backyard of her childhood home and falling asleep in its swaying boughs while she searched frantically below. But now, as she watched long shadows swallowing yellowing grass, ancient stone, and the featureless shapes of students, she felt a niggle of unease in the back of her mind. Did everyone hear this tiny voice saying, "I wonder what it would be like to fall? To be free of it all for that one glorious second until gravity reasserted its rightful dominion and pulled you down into the Earth's embrace where you belonged? Would it be worth it?"

"Miss Chang."

She startled badly at the voice and swayed forward toward the open ledge before stumbling back with jarring abruptness onto solid stone. 

"Headmaster," she gasped, heart jolted like a frightened hare. "I-I was just going down to dinner."

He merely looked at her. Swallowing past a dry throat, she averted her eyes and stepped toward the stairs. He had no reason to hurt her, she told herself. She was a representative of the Ministry, and there would be consequences if he did. She had done nothing wrong. She shrank into herself as she brushed past him, acutely aware that none of those things would protect her if he truly wanted to harm her. He shifted back at the last second, yielding the right-of-way, but just as she began to breathe a sigh of relief, he said, "Miss Chang."

The long spiraling path to safety was open, but she stopped on the top stair and turned. "Yes, Headmaster?"

"There is a report I must have hand-delivered to the Ministry tomorrow. As I am busy, you will do it for me. See me in the Headmaster's Office tomorrow at nine. Inform Mr. Diggory that your errand will keep you past dinner."

That sounded serious. Cho swallowed and confirmed, "Nine, sir." She waited for a moment more, but there appeared to be nothing else. Snape had already turned to the open window. 

She had begun to descend again before he added, cold and remote: "Do not let me find you here again, Miss Chang."

Her heart leapt into her throat as she whispered, "Yes, sir." She could not help but turn to glance back at him. He was not looking at her but at something far off in the distance, face tilted slightly upwards as hers had been. As if he were waiting for the gathering dark to gain a voice, a form; as if he were not afraid of Dumbledore's ghost whispering in his ear.

She felt an unexpected, intensely familiar feeling sweep through her—the tightening of her throat, the heat-surge of tears. Cedric was right: she cried entirely too much these days, and sometimes even she couldn't figure out why. Why here? Why now? She couldn't say. She swallowed it down and went to dinner.

She found Cedric coming out of his office speaking in low but heated tones with Cormac McLaggen. 

"You said you had his ear," Cedric snapped, annoyed, and she flinched a little at the tone.

"We're cousins, of course I do!" McLaggen retorted. "But—he says it's too risky right now."

"Risky? It's Hogwarts!"

"Well, with all the rumors coming out of here, like the one that has the ghost of Godric Gryffindor roaming the halls, can you blame him? Plus he hinted that there was something big about to happen."

"What?"

"He didn't say. He can't exactly talk about it through the Owl Post, now can he?"

Cedric snorted. "I'm beginning to think you McLaggens are all smoke and no dragon."

"You'd better take that back, Diggory, or I'll—"

"Cedric?" Cho called out, and both men immediately stopped speaking. "Is there something wrong?"

"No, not at all," Cedric smiled and held out his hand. "I was just waiting for you to go to dinner. Shall we?"

She took it and allowed the familiar warmth to wash the chill of the Astronomy Tower from her mind, relieved that the acrimonious conversation hadn't soured his mood.

Later, as they worked on the _Daily Prophet_ 's daily crossword together in front of the fire, Cho told him about the order from Snape. 

"Do you want me to go instead?" he volunteered.

Cho leaned her head against his shoulder, feeling guilty about how much she wanted to snap at him sometimes for telling her what to do. He was only watching out for her, after all. She wished she were less of a bother to him, but at least this she could do. "No, it's all right. I can handle it."

She didn't know what she'd expected when she had handed Snape's sealed parchment to the assistant to the Junior Undersecretary of the Department of Magical Education at her desk, but it wasn't to be casually dismissed without a second glance. Why had Snape told her it would take her all day? Had he been mistaken? Or was it the assistant who was at fault?

"Excuse me," she said to the woman, whom she was almost sure had a magazine hidden beneath her large leather-bound schedule book, "but is there anything I should do to get that expedited?" Snape had told her there would be no response, but there must be some reason he'd said she would be late returning to Hogwarts.

"Expedited?" the assistant wrinkled her brow. "Why would anyone need to get this expedited? It's just a budget report filing." She pointed at a series of runes on the back of the parchment.

"Oh." Cho blinked. "Is it late?"

"No, it's not due until the middle of next month."

"All right. Um, thanks." Cho wandered away, confused. Her feet took her automatically to the Atrium, and she only decided on her destination as she stepped into the fireplace.

Nothing had changed. The quiet, modest ground-floor flat her parents rented in a quiet, modest Muggle neighborhood was still just as she remembered it. She walked through silent rooms, trailing her fingers over the smooth, silken lines of carved rosewood. It had been her mother's wedding gift from her grandparents; intended for their old house in the Scottish highlands, they over-crowded the tiny Croyden flat like the close-set displays of a furniture shop.

Once, feeling very grown-up and pragmatic during one of her summers home from Hogwarts, she had suggested to her mother that she sell some of the pieces. "We need the money for dad's treatment and we hardly ever use all eight chairs. Why do we even need a curio? We should get a smaller dining room set."

Her mother had been quiet for a moment before smiling at her, "These will be yours when we're gone, Cho. Your great-grandfather made them with his own hands, and they will last for generations. It's rare, these days, the things made to last. When they're yours, you can decide to keep them or not."

She tried to imagine Cedric in the armchair with the wooden armrests and curved back carved with the stylistic character for 'joy' and couldn't quite manage it, somehow. He didn't like old things or having someone else's style intrude into his space, and this would be intrusion on a grand scale, into the most intimate of spaces. Maybe it was one of those differences between Western and Eastern cultures. You were always finding your own path, forging your destiny into the wilderness in the West. The past was to be firmly kept in the past. A gift like this, bringing with it the ghosts of generations, was an imposition.

But somehow, when her mother had told her that this would be hers one day—her inheritance, she'd felt an odd protectiveness well up inside her, bonded to recognition. _Yes_ , some part of her had said to the oval dining table with its border of stylized clouds and the matching coffee table; _yes_ to the shelf and cabinets and curio with bamboo stems running up their sides and leaves delicately bordering their crowns; _yes_ to the expertly-jointed nail-less chairs each carrying their own small measure of joy. This was her history, and the ghosts here all spoke of love. _Things made to last._

Her room was exactly as she'd left it, with its walls full of Tutshill Tornados banners and posters and her twin-sized bed made up with its pink peony bedspread. It seemed smaller than she remembered. Too much had changed in her life. She was an adult now, and no longer either constrained or kept safe by these walls. She lay down on her bed and closed her eyes for a moment, but her brain refused to quiet. Would she get in trouble for not returning to Hogwarts immediately after delivering Snape's report? But for what? It was Saturday, and her time was her own. Seen another way, Snape had told her that she wasn't expected back at Hogwarts until after dinner, so what complaint was there to be had if she did exactly that?

She made up her mind, got up, tied her hair into a ponytail, and changed into a t-shirt and shorts and threw on a light jacket before walking out the front door.

The day was warm for late October, scattered clouds lazily swimming across the bright blue sky. Cho felt the tension slowly drain out of her shoulders as she briskly traversed the familiar tree-lined residential trees toward Barclay Road. 

Park Hill Recreation Ground, with its fifteen acres of ornamental and walled gardens, tennis, netball, and basketball courts, and children's playground was a popular destination for neighborhood residents on a sunny autumn weekend. Cho headed straight for the basketball court, where she'd watched many a game in the lonely days after they'd first moved here. The single concrete court, however, was empty. She circled it slowly, disappointed out of all proportion to such an inconsequential, commonplace occurrence.

Just as she was about to give up and leave, however, there came a booming shout: "Hail up, look who it is!"

She turned, grinning, and leapt into the arms opened wide to receive her. "Shav!" He gave her a great bear hug and then swung her around like she weighed nothing. 

They were both laughing when he set her down again. "Di Queen o' di Court is back, bwoys!" he yelled to his mates coming up the path.

Soon she was holding her stomach and giggling as Shawn, Ben, Mike, and Omar vied to tell her what they'd been up to, with stories like "Sadie, Ben's sister—you probably don' remember her—" "Tahp di noise, chatty chatty! Who cares 'bou your love-life?" "Yeah mon!" "—she come back from Cambridge wit all dem big words, talk like she swallow a dictionary, and I seh to miself, I seh, 'Dere is one smart gyal, Mike, and if you wan' 'ave a go you better level up for real,' so off I go to dat bookstore at Whitgift—di big one wit all dem big glass windows—" "You ever crack open a cover of someting wit no nikkid gyals inside, Mike?" "Yeah mon!" "—an' firs' ting I see is di rack with all dem gyalie mags—"

After they had all finished laughing at Mike for the exaggerated woebegone style of his tragi-comic tale, they split off into two teams for some three-on-three basketball. "Don' tell me di Queen's lost her touch," Shav grinned wolfishly after he'd smacked her first inbound ball back out of bounds.

She narrowed her eyes at him, swayed left, then snapped the ball forward when he fell for her feint. And the game was on.

She was, a panting Cho had to concede later with the game tied at 32-32, out of shape. She hadn't been on a broom at all since she'd graduated, and the sweat trickled down her face. But the eye that made her a good Seeker also allowed her to see angles and openings that the others missed, and the thrill she experienced every time she scored against Shav's merciless hounding more than compensated for the burning in her lungs.

When a second group came up and challenged them to a six-on-six game and she got to play on the same team as all her friends, though—that was even better.

They celebrated their win at a nearby Indian restaurant, all six of them squeezed into a corner booth. "Wah gwaan, mi fren?" she asked Shav, a phrase of Jamaican Patois he had taught her meaning, "How are you, my friend?"

"Mi deh yah, yuh know," he gave the traditional response, teeth flashing white against his dark face.

She smiled back. "How's the apprenticeship going? I bet you're learning all kinds of cool new things, huh?"

He looked down at his plate and shrugged a little. After a moment, he admitted, "I've been thinking about quitting."

"What? Why?" she demanded. "You worked so hard to get in!"

"The boss doesn't like me talking back to him, and I don't like the way he talks down to me and this other kid, Ali Barha. You know me, can't keep dis big trap shut."

"Oh, Shav."

"'Sides, I've got an uncle looking for someone to help him run his furniture-repair place, says he'll teach me the business. You don't need any qualifications for that." 

She knew that he'd already completed two out of his four years as an electrician's apprentice, but she merely turned and gave him a sideways hug, which he gladly returned. They broke apart to good-natured ribbing from the rest of the company:

"Yow Cho, how come he get two hugs and we get none?"

"Don' let Didi catch you, or she gon' rip your face off!"

(Diana, whom Cho had never met, had been Shav's on-again, off-again girlfriend for as long as she'd known him, and was spoken of as if she possessed the Roman goddess' own capacity for violence.)

"Cho's boyfriend gon' give you one bitch-slappin' if he find your plus-size paws on her, Shav!"

"Yeah mon, for real!"

"Tahp di noise," Cho said firmly to gales of laughter.

When it came time to part, she gave a round of hugs while hiding her surge of emotion behind her best smile. "Aw, don't look like that, Cho," Shav said. "We'll shoot some hoops again real soon. Bring the boyfriend next time so we can tell him what happens to him if he does you wrong, yeah?"

She laughed and promised that she'd try. "Inna di morrows, Shav."

"Xia ci zai jian, Cho!"

On the way back, she decided to stave off her melancholy by picking up some groceries for dinner. She was in the middle of a light bok choi stir-fry when she heard the door open and close and laborious footsteps make their way into the sitting room. 

" _Baba_ , how are you?" she set a cup of tea on the glass surface of the side table next to him as he dropped into his armchair and leaned his cane against it.

"I'm well, Cho. Are you staying for dinner?" The question was matter-of-fact, as if they saw each other every week instead of every few months.

"I am. I'm making a couple of things so mum will have less to do when she gets back." She fetched the _Daily Prophet_ for him as he settled back into the chair, the habitual tension on his face easing slightly.

Her mother smiled widely when she walked into the kitchen to find Cho dipping flat pieces of tofu in an egg and flour paste in preparation for one of her favorite dishes. She changed out of her Ministry robes into casual home wear and then joined Cho, chopping green onions and starting a hot-and-sour soup—Cho's favorite, sharing their respective news from their time apart as they worked in tandem. Cho kept her part light, picking anecdotes that she thought might amuse her mother, and took care to present the dinner with the Rowles and the subsequent concert as no more than dull social affairs.

"How is Cedric?" her mother asked. "Please let him and his father know that we are very grateful for their help."

"He's fine, _mama_ , and I know, I will." Her mother said it every time, no matter how short their conversation: _Please thank Cedric and his father and let them know that we are very grateful._ Cho tensed, wondering if she was about to ask about the wedding as she usually did. She knew it was not her mother's intent, but the questions made her feel as if she were being pushed inch by inch backwards off the edge of a cliff. The last time she'd snapped in response, "I don't know yet! I'll tell you when we decide, all right?" 

But this time she merely began telling Cho the latest news about her friends, none of whom Cho had seen in months, some in years. They were of interest only because they were interesting to her mother, and because it was a window into her mother's life. Cho smiled and relaxed into the easy flow of her mother's storytelling.

Dinner was its usual quiet affair, her parents catching each other up on their day as they ate. Her father sat at the head of the table with Cho and her mother next to him facing each other, and Cho slipped into her place feeling as if she'd been gone for a day, not months. Once, bored by their mundane exchanges day after day, she'd suggested they get a wireless for the room. Now she was glad they never had. Their conversation was soothing, and she heard the words beneath the surface as she couldn't when she was a child: _It was an ordinary day...a little boring...a little vexing...a little amusing...but I'm glad I got to live it just like it was because now I can share it with you. Nothing happened, and that's good...let all my days be like this, so that I can be with you at their end. I'm all right. You're all right. We're here. We're together._ It was something she wished she could have with Cedric, too: this contentment of just being together.

There was a part of Cho that wished they could stay like this forever. That she never need lose her parents to violence, disease, or age. She swallowed hard and began during a lull in the conversation, " _Mama_ , there something I want to talk to you about. About your status."

Her parents glanced at each other. "That's not something you should worry about, dear," her mother replied calmly. "I'm working on it."

Cho took a deep breath, then cast the spell Ginny had taught her the week before: " _Muffliato_." She switched to Mandarin. "Mum, I have a friend who has contacts with the people evacuating Muggle-borns. If I can get a Portkey for you, will you keep it just in case?"

Her parents exchanged another look, and Cho knew her mother would refuse the offer. But what she actually had to say shocked Cho: "I can't leave, Cho. Your great-grandmama is sick. We don't know how serious it is yet, but I have to be here to take care of her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Thoughts that could be interpreted as non-explicit hints of suicide ideation.
> 

> 
>   
>   
> "tahp di noise" — Jamaican Patois, "Shut up."
> 
> "mi deh yah" — Jamaican Patois, "I'm here/I'm ok"
> 
> "inna di morrows" — Jamaican Patois, "See you later."
> 
> "xia ci zai jian" — Chinese Mandarin, "See you next time."
> 
> "baba" — Chinese Mandarin, "dad"
> 
> "mama" — Chinese Mandarin, "mom"


	43. Chapter 43

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of ideas: the good, the bad, and the spectacular (not necessarily in that order).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be crunching on a work project for the month of December, so the next chapter will be posted in January. As always, thank you for reading and for your kind kudos and comments! I wish you a happy and safe holiday season, with hope for a gentler 2021.

The morning after his soul-baring session with Sol, Harry accompanied Dean on a visit to his mother in hospital. Dean, naturally, was curious about their new house-guest. As they waited for the doctor, he asked, "Is Sol your boyfriend, Harry? Is that why you broke up with Ginny?"

Harry's head spun around. "No, I'm not in a relationship with Sol, and please remember not to refer to them as either a 'boy' or 'girl.' Does everybody think we're together?"

"Got it, sorry, and just about—there were bets," Dean admitted cheerfully. "Percy's vehemently against, I'm opportunistically for." 

Small spaces, bored people. But still—bets? Harry coughed. "Opportunistically?"

"Well, if you are, then that means I have another chance with Ginny."

"Ginny and I aren't together anymore, even if there's nothing between me and Sol except friendship," Harry explained carefully.

Dean was quiet a moment. "Can I ask why? Ginny, she—I know she's loved you for a long time. And she'd be willing to wait for you, if that's what you wanted."

"Dean, you need to stop thinking that it's all about me. This is about Ginny." Harry bit back a sigh. How did women not go mad in a world that saw them as side characters in their male counterparts' lives instead of the protagonists of their own? "If you want to be with her, then take the risk and lay it out there. Trust that she knows what she wants and is capable of making those choices for herself."

"Yeah, but who'd choose me when there's you?" Dean muttered, though not bitterly.

Harry shook his head wryly, wondering if any of his friends would believe that he'd had one serious relationship in two lifetimes and had failed spectacularly at it. "Trust me, nobody bats a thousand. There are no perfect relationships. You fail at every one of them until you don't." (All right, fine, so he'd stolen that from his therapist, baseball analogy intact.) "All you need to do is decide if Ginny's worth the risk."

Dean pondered that for a while before finally changing the subject. "So I've got this idea I wanna run by you..."

"Yeah...?" Harry encouraged.

"Well, Hermione keeps complaining about how badly we're losing the media campaign and being mauled in popular perception because the Ministry has control of the _Daily Prophet_ and the _Quibbler_ doesn't exactly have a wide circulation. So I was thinking... what if we ran a guerrilla campaign, put out posters and stuff like 'The truth behind the Minister for Magic's stay in St. Mungo's—November 16' or 'Where is Bellatrix Lestrange now?—November 16' or 'Question your Reality—November 16.'"

"Why November 16?" Harry asked curiously.

"It doesn't have to be—the point is to have a phrase linking everything together. We draw people's attention, make them curious, and set up the big reveal. It could a special issue of the _Quibbler_ distributed on that day or something."

Harry was silent for a moment, stunned. What Dean was describing was a viral campaign for the Wizarding world, and it was brilliant. "That's brilliant, Dean!"

Dean smiled, looking a little surprised at his vehemence. "You think so?"

"Yeah, it really is."

"Great! I'll come up with a couple of designs, find something eye-catching."

"Do that," Harry nodded. "Out of curiosity, why not go to Hermione directly instead of coming to me?"

Dean blinked. "...Because you're the Chosen One and our fearless leader?"

Harry groaned inwardly. That was the problem with using a silly self-appointed title to gain unearned respect: it always came back to bite you on the arse. "Kinda hard for me to be a fearless leader when I'm never around, isn't it?" he pointed out.

"But you're back now..." 

Harry shook his head. "I don't know how long I'm staying. There are things I need to be doing that don't involve the Order. So run your idea by Hermione and Moody, will you? They'll probably have feedback for you that's better than anything I can think of."

Dean nodded thoughtfully. Just then the doctor arrived, and he chatted with Dean for a few minutes. Dean returned looking crestfallen.

"Dean?" Harry asked gently.

"The doctor recommended I not see her today because she's not feeling well after her last round of chemotherapy."

"All right. What do you want to do?"

Dean took a deep breath. "He said I should come back next week, so I guess that'll what I'll do."

"Do you want to leave her a note?" Harry suggested.

Dean brightened a little. "I...yeah. Do you...?"

Harry dug up a pen and notepad from his pouch and handed them over.

Dean wrote a short letter and left it with a nurse to give to his mother. He was very quiet as they made their way back to Grimmauld Place.

"It's her birthday," he finally offered as they Disapparated in the subbasement, "November 16th."

Harry touched his shoulder lightly. "You'll see her soon, Dean. You should think about how to help celebrate her birthday."

Dean exhaled and smiled a little. "Yeah. You're right, Harry. Thanks."

To Harry's surprise, Sol joined them for both lunch and dinner, and afterwards sat down at the drawing room piano to play a tune that sounded vaguely familiar—the one Hermione had played for himself and Ron in his other life, he finally remembered—Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata.' Their housemates gradually drifted into the room, drawn by the music as if entranced. Hermione came to sit next to him on the sofa and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"They're amazing," she whispered.

The frenzied third movement drew loud applause and a couple of bravos, and Sol threw a wide smile over their shoulder before starting on the next song. It made Hermione sit up straight, her eyes shining.

"What?" Harry asked softly.

"It's Beethoven's 'Fugue for Piano,' written for four hands—a duet," Hermione explained.

"I guess that's your cue, then," Harry grinned and nudged her.

"But I'm nowhere near—"

"Hermione, it's an invitation, and you obviously want to," Harry poked her until she got up, giggling.

She shyly approached the piano, and Sol slid down the bench to make room for her. She began tentatively at first, but noticeably gained confidence as they encouraged her gently. They played several more duets after that, ending each to cheering and applause from their audience. It was the perfect evening, and Harry could only wish that Severus was here to enjoy it with him.

Sol fell in with the rhythm of the house quickly after that, and in no time at all became an indispensable part of their little company. Luna seemed especially intrigued by their mercurial willingness to try on any identity at all, and conspired with Andromeda to create all sorts of interesting, provocative, beautiful, or downright bizarre ensembles for them (some of which were all of the above), including: a long shimmering skin-tight black gown paired with fairy wings and dark purple lipstick; the top half of very formal dress robes sewn onto a wide bell dress bottom that boasted enough lace to make two wedding robes; a pink doll's dress ending at the knees with the rest of Sol's skin decorated by swirls of bright-blue war-paint; what looked like priestly vestments in creamy white (complete with royal purple tippet) left open at the sides to expose Sol's flanks and long legs juxtaposed with a tall bishop's miter (which caused more than a few people to spit out their beverage-of-choice at breakfast); something indescribable made solely from peacock feathers; something even more indescribable that might've been sewn from spidersilk and fish scales...

They hadn't brought up either their uncle or Selwyn again, though Harry knew they were thinking about what he'd told them. He trusted that they would talk to him when they were ready. He did, however, feel compelled to ask: "Are you okay with this? I can talk to Luna if you're not comfortable modeling for her."

"Are you kidding?" Sol exclaimed. "This is fantastic! Look at this!" They struck a pose that had Percy turning bright scarlet and fleeing from the dining room. (Today's ensemble was made of hundreds of strands of bright glass beads, and they danced in mesmerizing synchrony at Sol's slightest movement.) "Can you believe the amount of attention and detail—of _art_ —that went into this? I love it!"

Well, as long as everyone was happy... Maybe Luna and Andromeda were planning to open a fashion design business after the war.

Dean and Ted elevated Sol to the status of patron saint the day they brought electricity (and its immediate corollary: football games) into the house. It began by Sol dragging Harry around a hardware store (in street clothes, not Grimmauld High Fashion—thankfully? sadly?) to obtain such arcane things as receptacles, wire clippers, a set of screwdrivers, a set of pliers, wire caps, switches, and testers, interrupted by a brief interlude to argue over whether they were going to source the power from another flat (i.e. steal from another resident) or from the street (i.e. steal from the power company). This interlude was followed by the purchase of even more arcane items, such as circuit breakers of various sizes and amperage, an electrical box, different gauges of wires, and even more caps.

Their first task was to determine where to join their main line to the street's. They found a locked metallic box offset from the sidewalk between Numbers 12 and 13 and opened it up to find a thick wire connected to an electrical meter along with a large circuit breaker. 

"Eureka!" Sol exclaimed cheerfully. "Now you just need to connect the line coming in from the street to that—" pointing to the thickest and heaviest coil of newly-purchased wire Harry had unceremoniously dumped on the ground "—and tunnel it back into the house."

"Wait, how come I'm the one doing this?" Harry protested.

"'Cause it's your house?"

"But I have no idea what I'm doing! What if I get zapped and fried to a crisp?"

"I doubt that's going to happen. 120 volts won't feel pleasant, but it won't kill you."

"120 volts?" Hermione interjected. "I'm pretty sure we're on 240."

Both of them stared at Sol. Only then did Harry think to ask: "Where'd you learn about this stuff, anyway?"

"I listened in on a couple of classes at Oxbridge. Never could remember about the voltage, though," Sol scratched the back of their neck sheepishly.

Harry and Hermione stared some more. "Um, if I can make a suggestion..." Hermione ventured.

"Please," Harry almost begged.

"How about if we get a generator and leave the ambitious modernizing to when you can hire a professional?"

"That's a great idea, Hermione. Brilliant."

Whereupon Harry returned receptacles, wire clippers, screwdrivers, pliers, caps, switches, circuit breakers, etc., etc., and bought a generator (plus a telly). Sol still got credit for bringing electricity to the house, though.

Despite Sol's skyrocketing popularity, Percy's resentment towards them continued unabated. He made it a point to never speak to them and tended to leave any room they entered. The passive aggression tested everyone's patience, and Harry knew that things couldn't go on as they were. He asked Percy to stay back after breakfast one day and steeled himself for a Difficult Conversation.

"You don't have to ask me to leave, Harry. I've already decided to join McLaggen's group," was Percy's opening volley.

Harry replied carefully, "I wasn't going to ask you to leave. Just for you to at least acknowledge Sol when they're in a room with you."

Percy's face twisted. "You promised I wouldn't have to speak to him if I didn't want to."

"'Them,' Percy. You'd rather continue to see them as the nephew of a Death Eater—a Yaxley—instead of taking them for what they are, as they are. Why?"

"Because he's...they're... _unnatural_."

"From a certain viewpoint wearing clothes is unnatural." Harry swallowed back a burst of anger. "There's a long history of people using that word to justify atrocities committed against other people simply for being different—which is to say: for no reason at all. So you should think very carefully about using it."

Percy's expression tightened. "I know all of you are on his side, but how could you do this to Ginny?"

"'Their,' Percy." Harry mentally tripped over the non sequitur. "And how is this in any way, shape, or form about Ginny?"

"The way _they_ look at you, it's indecent! And _they_ flaunt _them_ selves, and you let _them_ touch you! How do you think that would make Ginny feel if she knew?"

"Ginny and I are no longer in a relationship, not that it's any business of yours. And I am certainly not going to justify my friendships to anyone. If you want to go, Percy, fine: you're not a prisoner here. But you should be clear about why, because it's not about Sol, or Ginny, or me. It's about you. Your decisions."

He stood and turned to leave, but Percy's grip around his arm stopped him. Percy's chair overturned with a thump as he shot up. Harry only realized his intent with their faces two inches apart. He stepped back and stopped Percy with a hand to the chest.

"Percy..."

Percy turned red as his hair. "I'm sorry!" he gasped, and fled.

Harry sank down into his chair with his head in his hands.

_What even... This never happened in my other life._

_The one where you married his sister, you mean?_

_We've officially become a character in a soap opera._

Someone sat down next to him. "Let me guess," drawled Sol's voice, filled with an unsuppressed glee that made Harry itch for his wand. "He tried to make a pass at you."

Harry lifted his head to glare. "I thought the key to being a good eavesdropper was not to get caught."

Sol shrugged. "Guess I'm not a very good eavesdropper, then."

"How is this even my life," he groaned.

"Maybe you should've paid more attention when Percy was checking out your arse. Then you could've let him down gently. And you realize that long spiel about 'Ginny' wasn't really about Ginny, right?"

"Yeah, I get that _now_. Also: Percy was checking out my arse?!"

"Well, you do have a rather delectable arse, especially once you started wearing jeans that actually fit you."

"You mean the ones that supposedly came out of the wash two sizes smaller? And can we please stop objectifying my arse?"

"Oh, that's definitely not the most objectifiable part of your anatomy," Sol gave him a lingering once-over.

Harry merely raised an eyebrow at them. "Speaking of my anatomy, am I to understand that you no longer wish to castrate me with a spoon?" he asked archly. "You got any suggestions here that won't end with further bodily harm to my person?"

"'Course, 'cause I'm brilliant."

"Go on...?" Harry prompted, already knowing he was going to regret it.

"Let's hire some go-go boys!"

"Ugh, you're no help," Harry's head thudded onto the table. "Why'd I even ask?"

"Just to prove you wrong, I'm gonna go talk to your loverboy for you."

"Really?" Harry eyed them quizzically from the level of the table's scarred surface.

"I charge 175 pounds an hour. I'll wire the bill to your room."

Harry spluttered a laugh. Really, what could go wrong?

When Percy sat down to breakfast the next morning, he was decidedly...odd.

For one thing, he was smiling dreamily. He languidly picked up a peach from the fruit bowl and stared at it for about five minutes before declaring to nobody in particular, "This is a terrific peach!" and biting into it with gusto.

The peach was followed by grapes ("These are fabulous grapes!") and an apricot ("This is a spectacular apricot!")

Tonks was giving him serious side-eye at this point of the Paean to Fruit. "Hey Perce? That's coffee."

"Mmm. Yes. Coffee. Wonderful coffee." He poured it over his pancakes and eggs and munched in a contented reverie. He then roused himself to deliver a fervent if disjointed (but thankfully paean-less) apology to Harry before floating out of the room.

Harry cornered Sol after breakfast. "So you 'talked' to him, huh?"

"There was talking involved, yeah," Sol assured him airily. ("Though a bunch of it was of the 'that feels so good, do that again' variety.")

Harry pretended not to hear the aside. "Is this going to be an ongoing thing?"

"Dunno. Guess it'll be up to him."

"Why him and not you?" Harry queried.

"We're both here, he's cute and available," Sol shrugged. "I'm a simple non-binary being."

Harry sighed. "I hope both of you know what you're doing."

"It's just sex, Harry. Stop making it so complicated."

"You carbon-copied Percy on that memo, right?" Maybe he should've sprung for the go-go boys after all.

It was Halloween, and Number Twelve Grimmauld Place had gone all-out to celebrate. Soon the house would be ablaze with candles and the odd strands of Halloween lights hooked up to the spell-silenced generator by long snaking extension cords. It was all a great big fire waiting to happen, but he was sure it would all look quite nice.

It smelled even nicer, for everyone had spent some time in the kitchen that day contributing their favorite dishes to the feast that would take place momentarily. Harry had finished his potato salad around noon, and was now hiding out on the roof with Hedwig. 

He was, simply stated, feeling a bit overwhelmed. By tradition he'd always spent October 31st alone sitting vigil for a private memorial. Could he let that go and allow himself to enjoy this day with his friends? He stroked Hedwig's smooth feathers and closed his eyes, querying his inner melancholy. What did he want? The answer came immediately; he changed the question: what did he want out of what he could actually have?

When Hedwig shifted restlessly from foot to foot, he sighed and said, "Yeah, think I'll stay out here a little while longer. Here—" He gave her a lift up, and she launched with powerful strokes of her wings upward into her little piece of the sky.

"Harry."

He smiled a little at the voice and turned. "Found me, huh?"

Sol came to stand next to him. "Hermione asked me to come up. She's wondering if they should wait on you to start the feast."

Harry's eyebrows quirked as he suddenly wondered if Hermione had been one of the people to bet on himself and Sol. "No, don't let me keep everyone. I just need a bit."

Sol lingered, following Harry's gaze skyward. "She's beautiful," they murmured.

"Yeah. I just wish I could give her more space to fly. It must be hard, knowing she's trapped here and not knowing why."

"Is a balance between keeping someone safe and depriving them of their most precious freedoms even possible?"

Harry turned his gaze to Sol. "Maybe all there is is the intention of your jailer: what are they trying to take from you while you're just trying to survive? But even with the best intentions in the world it's still a deprivation. At least I hope Hedwig will forgive me."

Sol sighed and wandered over to a pot of basil. They bent down slightly to savor the fresh scent of the pointed oval leaves. "You're in love with someone, aren't you?" When Harry remained silent for too long, they continued, "Why haven't you told them?"

"What makes you think I haven't?" Harry answered reluctantly.

"Because then they'd be here. With you. Unless, I suppose, it's the bloke who stabbed you."

Harry huffed a wry laugh. "It's not the bloke who stabbed me. But much as I'm flattered by your estimation of my charms, it's not that simple."

"You always make everything more complicated than they need to be. If I ever saw Therios again, I'd tell him...I'd tell him that I'd want his face to be the last thing I saw before I died. Because maybe then I'd understand what I've lived my life for."

Harry looked away to wrestle his emotions into some semblance of control. "I wish I had your courage."


	44. Chapter 44

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halloween, continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 2021!

It was Halloween, and pint-sized ghouls, goblins, ghosts, witches, princesses, astronauts, super-heroes, and other fantastic beings had begun to venture out into the streets in search of their yearly tribute of candy. The graveyard at Godric's Hollow, however, was quiet.

To Harry's surprise, someone was already standing in front of his parents' graves. The other visitor was not trying to hide his presence—in fact, he would probably have a hard going of it if he did. Harry had never seen anyone who resembled a sculpture in bronze of the Laughing Buddha quite so much as this man, with his great round head complete with shining bald pate, a waistline that spoke to a fervent love of fine cuisine, and a generous pot belly that could probably produce the Buddha's own merry booming laugh.

Wrapped in his Invisibility Cloak, Harry waited quietly as the other man bent with surprising grace to place a bouquet of lilies in front of the gravestone. Someone who had likely known his mother, then, though he was not familiar to Harry. Intensely curious, Harry circled around soundlessly so he could see the man's face.

The intensity of the grief he found there staggered him; he finally realized, his breath hitching: _Severus._

Mesmerized, he could not help but stare as the other man trailed his fingertips across the top of the cold smooth stone as gently as if it were a living creature in need of comfort. He murmured something too softly for Harry to hear, but he was close enough to read what words his lips had formed: "Forgive me. This will be the last time, I think."

He made a sound, then, of pain or protest or denial, and instantly Severus' head snapped up, his blackwood wand in his hand. "Wait!" Harry threw off the Invisibility Cloak and held up his hands. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to spy."

"Harry." Severus' wand hand wavered and fell. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, then looked away."I'm sorry. I'm intruding. I'll go."

"Please don't." Harry cast _Muffliato_ before continuing, low, "Stay, Severus. You have every right to be here. I'll go, if you wish." 

"Don't go," Severus answered immediately, though he said it to the bouquet he had placed on the ground.

Harry inched closer, hope leaping like the spark of an _incendio_ in his chest. Severus' eyes, still dark in his altered face, startled to him at the movement, and Harry stopped. He hesitated for a moment before asking quietly, "You come here every year...don't you?"

After brief pause, Severus gave a single nod, tilting his head away as if trying to hide his expression behind non-existent hair.

Tears sprang unexpectedly to Harry's eyes, his throat, and he had to breathe steadily through his mouth for a few minutes to push them back down. The silence stretched between them, and Severus made no effort to end it.

Harry managed clumsily, "She must be glad that you come to visit her."

Severus gave him a fierce look of contempt that seemed entirely alien to the gentle face he was wearing. "Do not blather about what you don't understand. I come here for my own sake, not hers."

"Why shouldn't she be glad about that?" Harry asked, taking one step closer and then another until Severus drew back from him. 

"I'm not here to ask her forgiveness."

"What are you here for?" Harry took another slow step forward, and this time Severus refused to retreat. They were close enough now that Harry could smell an incense-sweetness rising faintly from Severus' robes: orange blossoms and sandalwood. He peered up into Severus' closed face. 

A muscle twitched in the other wizard's clenched jaw.

He tamped down on the rapid drumming of his heart. There were words rising, gathering in the back of his mind, and he hesitated for a moment, breathed. Then a moment more.

"I bless you, Severus Snape, in Lily Potter's name—" he began.

Severus' face contorted, and his lips parted. "You have no right," he rasped.

"If not me, then who?" Harry asked softly, and began again: "I bless you, Severus Snape, in Lily Potter's name and in my own. I wouldn't be alive today if not for your sacrifices, and for that alone she would never turn away from you."

"She should. She would be alive, if not for me."

It hurt to see the agony on Severus' borrowed face, unmasked as if he could not command the foreign muscles to smooth out into his habitual impassiveness. Harry sharply curbed his desire to reach out and answered, "Maybe. We'll never know. But this I do know, and I swear that my words are true. When your time comes, Severus, when your soul steps across to the other side of the Veil, you will not be alone. You will not be derided, despised or discarded, for those you have loved and lost will come to welcome you into their midst. And my mother will be among them."

Severus slowly crumbled to the ground like a mountain sinking beneath the sea. Harry knelt and cupped his wet cheeks in both hands. He leaned up to kiss the other wizard's forehead—then, after a split-second hesitation, very gently on the lips. After that he simply held him as Severus dissolved into ragged, gasping sobs, Harry's own tears dropping silently onto the rough robes at Severus' shoulder.

When Severus calmed and they drew back a little from each other, thickets of black hair were sprouting from his head. Harry hastily tossed the Invisibility Cloak over both of them. "What'd you use for the Polyjuice, anyway?" he asked thickly through a stuffed nose.

"Eyebrow," Severus answered, eyeing him a little quizzically.

Harry smiled as Severus' craggy face re-emerged from its consecration in bronze. "Did you find it in a Buddhist temple?"

"No, a Satanic one."

As Harry spluttered, Severus' smirk gentled into a true smile. He softly brushed the back of his fingers against Harry's cheek.

Harry's breath hitched. _I missed you_ , he almost blurted out, before remembering the vow not to intrude into Severus' comfort zone. To not intrude into Severus' comfort zone for his own selfish ends, he amended before his other self could make a snarky comment.

Severus' hand dropped away. "How is your wound?" he asked, almost formally.

"Healed, more or less," Harry answered, then added at Severus' frown, "I mean—it's not bothering me anymore."

Severus nodded and looked away. After a moment of silence, he admitted, low, "I did not expect to see you again."

"Why not?" Harry asked as softly, knowing he was hedging but guiltily wanting Severus' response anyway.

"The book," Severus answered. "I did not think you would have left it in that manner if you were planning to return. And then you sent the house-elves."

Harry exhaled. "I'm sorry. I didn't know if you'd want me, after all the trouble I gave you."

Severus shook his head. "Come back to Hogwarts," he said.

"Now?" Harry asked, feeling a lift in his chest, like something had grown wings and transformed, a boulder into a butterfly, maybe, or a lump of lead into a firebird.

"Now," Severus answered, a soft rumble, and held out his hand. Harry took it.

This, Harry thought later in the Headmaster's quarters, facing Severus across a small dinner table groaning beneath the weight of the Halloween feast laid upon it, was what he'd truly answered when he'd asked himself on the rooftop of Grimmauld Place what he wanted. How miraculous that some deity somewhere seemed to have granted his wish. Perhaps the man from the Satanic Temple was more than he appeared.

They ate for a while in comfortable silence. Harry, while never quite as voracious as Ron, was nevertheless a mostly indiscriminate eater who tended to heartily enjoy and consume food—especially the meals provided by the Hogwarts elves, which some part of him still identified with 'home.' Severus, by contrast, was fastidious and deliberate. He preferred, Harry had noticed with fascination, to separate everything into its component parts on his plate and to finish one subtype before moving onto another, usually in a clockwise direction. A ladleful of beef stew, for example, became tiny mounds of celery, potatoes, beef, and carrots, and he consumed them in that order (though, Harry saw with a tiny grin, he left the carrots).

Severus lifted an eyebrow at his smile. Harry told him, "Thank you for this. I feel like Oliver Twist sometimes, always begging you to feed me."

Severus snorted lightly. "I'm sure you had as splendid a repast awaiting you at home."

"Point. I make a top-notch potato salad," Harry chuckled, and told Severus about everybody fighting each other for the stove, and the candles they'd enchanted, and the strings of pumpkin lights hooked up to the generator. Then he realized how much had happened since he'd seen Severus last, and backed up to tell Severus about finding Sol and his potion and the three days of hell and Grimmauld High Fashion and almost getting electrocuted and Percy's journey of self-discovery.

In turn Severus relayed the news about Draco suffering a breakdown in the Great Hall that day at lunch and being kept under watch by Madam Pomfrey (and more covertly, Winky).

"And do _not_ attempt to sneak into the Infirmary to talk to him," Severus warned.

"What talk? At least one of me is tempted to sneak into the Infirmary to extract my pound of flesh," Harry protested. At Severus glare he held up his hands meekly. "I'm not suicidal, honest. Uh, I mean. You know what I mean." He huffed. "I just wish we had more resources for people who need mental health support, not just Mind Healing."

Severus gave him a skeptical kind of look. "I doubt a therapist could help Draco reconcile himself to the fact that he is fighting a war he does not understand."

"Hmm, true. But you know, in general. I was very lucky to have access to a specialist with MI-5. She was a colonel with the US Army—married a Brit; I got the impression her wife was MI-6. A transplanted Boston native—loved baseball, Red Sox fanatic, the works. I had to make her stop and explain all the baseball analogies to me." He chuckled at the memory. "And stuff like, why the hell are the US national championships called the 'World Series' when the only other part of the 'world' represented is Canada? "

"And the answer...?" Severus lifted a curious eyebrow.

"'American exceptionalism,'" Harry snorted. "She was a straight-shooter (pun intended)—probably why we got on so well. An IED took both her legs, but she was like Moody: tough as nails and took no shite from anybody. But she didn't let it make her bitter, she just made herself big enough that it became a little thing by comparison. Spiritually, not physically. But also not religiously. Um. I'm not explaining it very well. Did that make sense?"

Severus nodded as if it made perfect sense.

Harry beamed. "Right, good. I admired her so much. And you know, in the Wizarding world we keep talking about all the things Muggles would take from us if they knew we existed, but we take so much from them without them even knowing. Muggle inventions like plumbing and trains. Other kinds of technology, eventually. Ethical and philosophical ideas. The Scientific Method, psychological research, and psychotherapy. Think of the ways we could help each other if we could mesh our worlds."

"Think of the ways we could destroy each other," Severus countered.

"True," Harry smiled a little and clasped the other wizard's wrist briefly. "I know you probably don't agree, and I know you have your reasons for that. Lord Thingy has to come first, in any case. So, back to Draco. Is he a danger to the other students?"

Severus shook his head. "I've had the elves watching him. So far he seems more likely to be a danger to himself."

Harry nodded. "All right. We both know that this is the safest place for him, as long as he doesn't hurt anyone else. I'm sorry I forced you to betray your true allegiance to Madam Pomfrey, by the way. I know she's sworn the Healer's Oath, but...are you worried?"

"She always knew." Severus' eyes were softer than usual as they met Harry's surprised look. "She was Matron at Hogwarts during the first Wizarding War, and though she never joined the Order of the Phoenix, her principles have always placed her in direct opposition to the Dark Lord and his followers. Dumbledore trusted her, as do I."

"I'm glad," Harry said quietly. "How're the Carrows? Still sulking after your dressing-down?"

Severus smirked slightly. "Still sulking. Their reports have grown more voluminous but less note-worthy. Your elf friends are doing much to distract them."

"The 'ghost of Godric Gryffindor'—too bad I didn't have a reveal like that to put into my autobiography." Harry chuckled. "Oh, I just remembered—Hagrid might attempt to throw a 'support Harry Potter' party soon. Any way you can send him my way so I can have a chat with him?"

Severus rolled his eyes slightly but said only, "I'll think on it." He pondered for a moment before asking, "What happens to Conan McLaggen, in the other timeline?" 

"He escaped with a couple of other Aurors en-route to Azkaban after the takeover of the Ministry, but was later tracked down and killed," Harry recalled. "I think Kingsley posthumously awarded him an Order of Merlin, Third Class. Why?"

"Apparently he has been discussing an assault on Hogwarts with his cousin and Diggory as co-conspirators," Severus informed him.

Harry's eyebrows elevated into his hair. "Really."

"The plan appears to be on hold at the moment due to another development?"

"Probably the assault on A2." At Severus' look, he elaborated, "Azkaban Two, which rumor has it is where the Muggle-born and some lower-security prisoners are now being held. If it happens, McLaggen will probably lead the attack. He's been getting a lot of support. I haven't heard much about it; Moody doesn't want me anywhere near McLaggen."

Severus' expression darkened. "Shortsighted."

"That probably applies to us both, as you've pointed out. I've burned that bridge good and proper. But Hermione and I spent years fighting the kind of culture that he represents—the Good 'Ole Boys Club that thinks it is the law just because it's the active arm of the law... How can the public trust us...the DMLE, I mean, when for some of them it's the representatives of the law they need to be protected from? Can't McLaggen see that that just makes our jobs so much harder?" Harry sighed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to vent. So I take it you haven't heard anything about this second prison?"

"No...but that means very little, as the Dark Lord has not called me into a meeting since the beginning of term." He caught and held Harry's gaze. "Would you like me to attempt to find out more?"

Harry sucked in a swift breath, knowing what Severus was offering. And true, there was the possibility that it could save lives; even if he refused to deal with that moral ambiguity, he could not escape it. Still he said resolutely, "No. You're Headmaster now, Severus. We can't risk you. The Resistance has its own sources; let them figure this one out on its own."

Severus nodded after a moment, dark stare burrowing deep and canny. At one time Harry would have averted his eyes immediately out of fear for his most private thoughts. Now he returned it warmly, welcoming the other wizard in. It was Severus who looked away first.

"Why did you leave me that book?" he asked.

Harry blinked at the sudden change in topic. Then blinked again at the question. " _Dorian Gray_?" he returned, to give himself a little time to collect his thoughts.

" _Dorian Gray_."

There was something odd in his voice, but when Harry sought his expression, he found Severus' face lowered and intent on a fillet of sole, which he was cutting into perfectly even bite-sized squares as if in preparation for an exacting potion.

"...Because I thought you might like it?" Harry ventured, suddenly unsure. He'd spotted it on the shelf at A.Z. Fell's and had known immediately that it was something Severus would love but would probably never buy for himself. 

"Because you thought I might like it," Severus repeated as if the words might mean something different said out loud than in his head.

As Harry watched, Severus' brows slowly furrowed—but in puzzlement, not anger. As if he had never received a gift of liking before. 

Or, perhaps, that he could believe as such.

Harry exhaled in a slow controlled breath before adding with as much lightness as he could muster, "Granted, it is rather depressing for a gift. Though the gothic angst is on point, I have to say."

Severus answered his teasing tone mildly, "If you believe Wilde's declaration that 'There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book—books are well written or badly written,' then your reaction to it is a reflection on you, not the book itself."

"Sure, 'art for art's sake," Harry said, "and the prose is certainly beautiful at times. But that's not all that it means to you, is it?"

Severus hesitated for a moment before answering, "No. That Wilde had the courage to defend himself and his work in court in successive trials was no less astonishing than his work."

Harry smiled. "In the other timeline he was pardoned along with around 50,000 men who were charged with committing homosexual acts. It was popularly called the Alan Turing law, after the brilliant computer scientist and World War II codebreaker. The British government also formally and unequivocally apologized to Turing for his inhumane treatment after he was convicted of 'gross indecency.'"

"The British government...apologized...?"

"Yeah. One day our world will affirm by law the rights of people of all genders and sexual orientations too, and we will never look back from that. It's not so far-fetched or distant as you may think."

For dessert Harry dug enthusiastically into a treacle tart and then a piece of pumpkin pie while Severus looked on with amusement. They had moved from the Aestheticism espoused by Wilde into a discussion of Barthes' "Death of the Author," which Severus had acerbically dismissed as "attention-baiting hyperbole cloaked in self-defeating irony." Harry, who would never in a million years call himself a literary critic, was nevertheless having fun playing devil's advocate for the reader's right to determine the meaning of a text unbothered by the author's intent. Mostly, though, he was enjoying Severus passionately declaiming his position in his deep, rich voice.

But he was distracted when Severus picked a large pale-skinned peach out of the fruit bowl, the sensitive skin of his thumb brushing against the delicate fuzz covering the blushing swell before the dip towards the stem in an unconscious caress. He made the sudden connection to Percy's Paean to Fruit and felt his crotch tighten.

_Um, what?_

_It's an involuntary reaction! Why are you blaming me? It's not like you weren't thinking it too!_

_What happened to being disgusted?_

_As it turns out, I'm a normal seventeen-year-old. Also, my cock has realized that he's really fucking hot._

Harry spat out his tea. At Severus' raised-eyebrow inquiry, he gesticulated wildly at his head and then abruptly excused himself.

In the loo he splashed water on his face and groaned.

_Great. Now he thinks I'm an idiot._

_I don't think he ever thought otherwise._ A pause. _I_ am _an idiot._

_My cock's going to be the death of us._

And on that his two selves were in complete agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What I learned from my brief foray into literary criticism:
> 
>   1. My attempted style is apparently called 'lyrical realism.'
>   2. It's passé. 
> 

> 
> Welp!


	45. Chapter 45

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blind spots.

Dora blinked awake in the pre-dawn darkness to find herself with her head on her husband's chest and their legs entangled. "Good morning," she murmured, sensing that he was awake.

"Good morning," he responded quietly. "Did you sleep well?"

"Not really," she admitted, knowing that he hadn't either.

"I'm sorry," he sighed.

"No you're not," she pointed out, though not sharply.

After a pause he agreed, "No."

"Remus, we can't keep having this argument. You have to let me decide. What's right for me. What's right for my body."

"What's right for our baby?"

Dora exhaled. "That, too, if you have to put it that way."

"So I get no say in the matter?"

"Remus, you're my husband. Of course I'm listening to what you're saying. But I'm asking you to _be_ my husband. My partner, not my owner or my master. I know that you want to protect me, protect our family, but I also need you to trust me. To trust that I know what I'm doing. That I won't put myself or our baby in more danger than I have to."

"I don't understand why you have to put yourselves in danger at all."

"Because I'm an Auror. It's my job to protect those who can't protect themselves—it's who I am. Please don't tell me you married me hoping to change me." Her voice wobbled, and she finished quietly, "It would break my heart."

"I would never do that to you," Remus said fiercely. "Dora, please believe that you're the best thing in my life, exactly as you are. But you also have to understand that the uncertainty is killing me."

Dora was silent for a long moment, simply listening to her husband's steady breaths in the warm darkness. So many of her friends had given up their careers and life goals for husbands and family; was this where she had to make the same choice? But she'd already decided, hadn't she, that her family came first? "After this mission I'll resign from the Order until our baby is born," she promised. "Then we'll see. All right?"

She felt Remus let go of some of his tension in a long exhale. "Yes," he whispered, kissing her hair. "Thank you."

The assault on Azkaban Two began on a cold, misty, cloud-laden morning. McLaggen was now leading the largest Resistance faction with twenty-nine former members of the DMLE, fighters all (as he proudly proclaimed). They'd already cleared out the biggest Snatcher encampment in the Forest of Dean along with several smaller ones and were ready to take on bigger game. Dora, Remus, and Mad-Eye met him on an empty wind-swept moor in North Yorkshire. They were to rendezvous with Kingsley and his contact, whom he had found via a recommendation from Conan McLaggen's father Tiberius. 

Said contact, a thin, nervous-looking man with a receding hairline and rooster beak of a nose by the name of Crenshaw, was a clerk in the Muggle-born Registration Office. He peered distrustfully at McLaggen and demanded, "Where's Shacklebolt? He was supposed to meet me here!"

"He's been delayed," McLaggen said smoothly after exchanging glances with Mad-Eye. "Why don't you show me around a little while we wait?"

The man eyed McLaggen's Auror robes and backed away a step. "I don't know you. Why should I trust you?"

"Oh, where are my manners?" McLaggen relaxed his stance, smiled, and held out his hand. "I'm Conan McLaggen. My father Tiberius speaks very highly of you."

"He-he does?" Crenshaw took McLaggen's hand hesitantly—then, when the other man continued to smile, shook it with more confidence. "Your father is a great man. A real lion of a man. I pointed him out to my wife once—'there goes one of the greatest statesmen of our times,' I told her. Heard about you too, of course, how you're the best Auror of your generation. You must make your father proud."

"Only doing my duty," McLaggen stated modestly as he began to steer Crenshaw away from the rest of the group. "So tell me about this secret prison..."

"It's not like him, is it, for Kingsley to be late for something like this?" Remus said worriedly to Mad-Eye, and Dora tensed.

"Might've been called away," Mad-Eye frowned, "but it doesn't necessarily mean a danger to the mission. He'll send a Patronus in that case."

Remus stayed silent at that, but she knew he was thinking: _what if he can't_?

They'd deemed it too risky for Kingsley to keep one of the Order's communication devices now that Yaxley was doing random searches of employees of the DMLE and secret raids against suspected spies. Kingsley had already claimed a room at Grimmauld Place and moved all of his potentially suspect belongings there, including a painting that he'd told her was going to be about Dumbledore. He'd even showed her sketches—she hadn't known he was an artist! For the time being, however, he was still staying in his flat, though he'd removed all of the Wizarding spaces he had created.

McLaggen returned after about fifteen minutes and told his second-in-command, a man named Tate, "We're moving out."

"McLaggen—" Mad-Eye growled. 

"We don't have the time to wait for your man," McLaggen shot back. "Crenshaw agreed to take us. Come with us or not—your choice. Ten minutes."

"It's too dangerous," Remus stated as soon as McLaggen had walked away. "It could be a trap."

"Could be," Mad-Eye agreed neutrally.

"But that was always true," Dora felt compelled to point out. "We've already discussed that."

"The likelihood has now shot up astronomically without Kingsley here," Remus argued.

Remus hadn't wanted her to come in the first place, but he was also right. Dora shoved away the tiny flash of resentment. "I'll call Hermione and see if she's heard from him," she said with more confidence than she felt.

Hermione's secure mirror-communication spell had now been taken up by multiple teams after several of the best spell-breakers of the Resistance had failed to crack it during extended testing, but she had been frustrated thus far in her efforts to incorporate voice into it. Something about mirrors naturally aligning with sight and something about runes. That had been pretty much all Dora had understood of Hermione's long explanation. Which was too bad, because Hermione and Harry's 'mobile' was very useful if you needed a more rapid and responsive form of communication.

Thus, in preparation for her resignation from active duty in the Order, Dora had been learning to use one of the Muggle devices in hopes of keeping herself useful while stuck at the house. Actually, their interesting new housemate Sol had been the one to take over her lessons after Hermione's explanation about 'dialing' and 'picking up' had left her even more confused than before she'd started. Hermione and Harry made it look so easy! "Just think of it like a wireless that you control by a single spell. You cast the spell by saying 'dial' and the name of the person you want to talk to, but it only works if they also own a mobile and they're linked beforehand (unless you know the secret code, but we can go into that later). I know 'dial' doesn't make sense—think of it as a spell invented by an idiot. Now, if someone wants to communicate with you, the mobile will let you know by making a sound or shaking, and you allow them to talk to you by pressing that green button there—yes, press it with your finger—and cut them off by pressing the red one. You can ignore all the other buttons for now. Just remember it all has to be done wandlessly."

And she thought Muggles didn't have magic!

(Here Hermione had interjected something about batteries and electricity, and Dora had been completely lost again. Batteries? And what did a wandless communication device have to do with football, anyway?)

She felt a gratifying little thrill of achievement when she pulled the mobile out of her robes, said "Dial Hermione" to it very carefully and clearly, and then remembered to hold it up to her ear in time to hear Hermione's voice on the other end say, "Tonks?"

"Hermione!" She tamped down her enthusiasm a bit when Mad-Eye and Remus both glanced at her. "Have you heard from Kingsley?"

"I thought he was supposed to meet you for the mission?" Hermione sounded worried, and Tonks sobered.

"Yeah, but he's not here. His contact showed up, though."

"I'll see if I can find out what happened. Be careful."

She heard the "beep" that meant Hermione had ended the call from the other side. Her first successful field call! The news wasn't great, though. She relayed the message to Mad-Eye and Remus. "But I still think we need to see this place for ourselves," she concluded, "even if just from the sidelines."

Remus didn't immediately disagree, which was something. Mad-Eye gave a short nod of agreement.

Azkaban Two turned out to be an abandoned bunker built by Muggles during their side of the war with Grindelwald. They Apparated onto the wooded hill surrounding it blind, for the location had been made Unplottable and was dotted with spells to confound and misdirect. The entrance was nothing more than a concrete-lined hole six feet in diameter. The back of the hill dropped steeply into a dry riverbed.

Several of McLaggen's team melted into the undergrowth as soon as they arrived, having apparently received private orders beforehand. McLaggen picked a dozen of his team to go in with himself and Crenshaw, leaving behind five of his people along with herself and Mad-Eye at the perimeter of the anti-Apparition shield. Remus volunteered to accompany McLaggen's vanguard.

"You know what to do," McLaggen told Tate, an older wizard with a long hollow-looking face wrinkled and wizened as tree bark. Then he said to Crenshaw, who was beginning to perspire heavily, "Lead the way."

Dora took deep breaths against the surge of adrenaline as Remus disappeared into the blank gloom of the entrance. Tate's command of four Aurors Disillusioned themselves around her. Mad-Eye was still and watchful, his magical eye rotating madly in its socket. She extracted her mobile again a little awkwardly with the hand that wasn't holding her wand and commanded in a low voice, "Dial Hermione."

Just as she heard Hermione's voice on the other side, however, there was a flurry of movement, and she found Tate's wand leveled at her.

"Give that to me," he instructed her calmly, utterly indifferent to Mad-Eye's wand now aimed at his chest over his heart.

"What?" she said blankly, not comprehending.

"Tate," Mad-Eye growled.

"We're all on the same side," Tate assured him. "But I can't have anyone making unauthorized communications. General's orders. I don't want anybody to get hurt, Mad-Eye, but you should know that you have four wands pointed at your head."

After a moment Mad-Eye dropped his wand and nodded at her.

Dora passed over her mobile, and Tate incinerated it with a brief, "Incendio!" to Hermione's voice repeating urgently, "Tonks?"

"Your mirrors too."

She and Mad-Eye both handed over their mirrors, which Tate also destroyed. He cast a standard spell to reveal magical objects on their persons before lowering his wand, satisfied. The tension around them eased somewhat.

"What is this about, Tate?" Dora demanded.

"General's expecting to be ambushed, and he doesn't want to make it any easier for any spies we might have around," Tate answered. "Everybody's under orders to use their Patronus for this mission."

"He took my husband in with him expecting a trap?!"

"Don't tell me you haven't considered the possibility, not with Mad-Eye here," Tate nodded at the ex-Auror. "We're soldiers in a war, and we're here to fight."

"I'm here to rescue and protect!" Dora snapped.

"No reason we can't work together," Tate assured her in a reasonable tone, "as long as everyone obeys the chain of command."

As Dora seethed, Mad-Eye asked, "It was your people who delayed Kingsley?"

"Not us. Last we heard he was getting pulled into questioning by Yaxley."

"And you didn't think to tell us this?!" Dora demanded furiously.

"That was right before we Apparated. Nothing you can do about it now."

"Crenshaw, then?" Mad-Eye pondered.

"Probably. Possibly others as well."

"Maybe you should've let your allies know what you were planning rather than dragging us out here under false pretenses!" Dora snapped.

"Oh, A2 is real enough, and Shacklebolt was the one who confirmed that they've got a bunch of Muggle-borns in there. Besides, this is out of Moody's own playbook," Tate nodded at Mad-Eye.

"Caught a coupla dirty Aurors in the first war," Moody confirmed when she looked to him.

Sometimes she forgot how bloody-minded Mad-Eye could be. All of a sudden she felt much more appreciative of Harry's moderating influence on her mentor, such as when he'd categorically rejected the idea of opening up more cells at Grimmauld Place to hold prisoners pending interrogation. The image of Remus in werewolf form restlessly prowling one of those cells popped into her mind, and she shivered a little and hurriedly pushed it back down.

She mistook the long savage howl of multiple wolves for a sound out of her nightmares at first, before Tate and Mad-Eye both swung around towards the eerie chorus with wand in hand. She'd instinctively leveled her wand as well, and strained outward with all her senses as everything around her fell into utter silence for a heartbeat. 

Then the screaming began.

"Something's wrong," Hermione said, staring at her mobile. Percy and Sol, who had borrowed the generator and were conducting some kind of experiment in the warded nook of the library that served as her spell-testing workroom, both looked up at her tone.

"What happened?" They waited impatiently while she redialed and listened as the call went to voicemail. "Tonks called me, but the connection cut off before she could say anything. It sounded like there was an argument on the other side. Now she's not answering. Nobody's responding to my mirror messages. And Kingsley's missing."

"What?!" Percy exclaimed. 

"He never showed up to the rendezvous with Moody, Tonks, and Remus. I've already called Harper—she has her own contacts within the Ministry. And I've called Harry, but I don't know how much he'll be able to do. I don't want him trying to infiltrate the Ministry by himself!"

They both sat down with her at her table with her mobile and communication mirror silent and dead in front of her.

"Is there anything we can do from here?" Sol finally asked. "Maybe we can't help Kingsley Shacklebolt, but what about the others? Can we find reinforcements to send them, assuming that they need it?"

"Harper probably would be willing, but we don't even know where they are. Kingsley's contact insisted on meeting him in a neutral location and Apparating him in instead of giving him Apparition coordinates. He said that the location is Unplottable."

Percy cursed and got up to pace. Sol watched him for a while. "I don't suppose Harry would know of some new-fangled spell that would help...?" they asked in a lowered voice. "The spell on that mobile, for instance?"

Hermione shook her head. "He said no. Unplottable locations can't be located by magic." At first she'd been surprised that Harry had told Sol the truth about himself, even if he needed their help with the Horcrux at Gringotts, but she thought she was beginning to understand. They held a unique perspective that saw problems from angles none of the rest of them did. Like bringing electricity into the house. The generator idea had always been within her reach, but somehow her brain had tossed it into a bin marked "not solvable within the magical world" and forgotten about it. So it was only when Sol had insisted on trying out their idea that her brain had been jolted into working on the problem. It had been an odd and uncomfortable feeling, coming face-to-face with such a glaring blind spot in her own thinking.

But whatever else his intentions, Hermione definitely felt less alone with someone else around who knew the truth about Harry, now that Ron was gone. Not to mention someone who understood the Muggle world, in some ways even better than she did. It was humbling, actually, to begin to see how much about the Muggle world she didn't know. She had gotten that feeling from Dean, too—a whole different perspective she wouldn't have suspected existed before she'd really talked with him. His poster idea was brilliant, and it was something she could never have thought of. On the other hand, she could understand Harry wanting to protect Dean and Luna from direct involvement with the war. She had recurring nightmares about her mirror spell failing and dooming the Resistance to capture and death.

"It sounds like the best way we can help is to figure out where this Azkaban Two is located," Sol concluded.

"But it's Unplottable!" Percy cried in frustration.

"So we find someone other than Kingsley's contact who knows where it is..." Hermione pondered.

"All of whom are Death Eaters," Percy pointed out.

"Or..." Sol was still staring thoughtfully at her mobile.

"Or...?" Hermione waited.

"Have you ever heard of triangulation?"


	46. Chapter 46

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's all connected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the end notes for specific warnings and citations for this chapter.

Forty-nine hours before the assault on Azkaban Two began, Ginny was at breakfast covertly cataloging her brother's interactions with his girlfriend. They were infuriatingly normal—which was to say that the public display of affection was at its usual level of barf-inducing without need for one of Fred'n'George's Puking Pastilles. Infuriating because Ron had definitely read one of her—or rather, her impersonated Hermione's—love letters, which she had copied by the dozen and tucked inside every single one of his textbooks.

Maybe there would be a delayed reaction. Ron could be kind of slow, after all.

But he caught up to her after breakfast and asked without preamble, "Ginny, d'you know if anyone's been going through my books?"

"No?" she said in a perfectly steady voice. "Why would anybody want to go through your books? It's not like you've got anything worth copying in there."

"No reason," he looked at her a little oddly. "I think somebody's been taking the mickey, is all."

"No idea," she shrugged airily. "You get anyone pissed off at you lately?"

"Not as many as you," he replied with a frank admiration that actually made her blush a little.

And off he went to Herbology before she could think of a subtle way to ask when he would be breaking up with his girlfriend.

The answer, as she came to learn over the course of the day, appeared to be 'never.' Ron had apparently discarded her meticulously crafted letters without a second glance or thought as if he really believed that it was just a prank. But the handwriting! Would someone spend so much time perfecting Hermione's handwriting if it was just for a laugh? Unless...she realized with sudden horror, Ron didn't recognize it despite all the times he'd cribbed Hermione's notes or borrowed her homework "for inspiration," which meant all Ginny's hard work had been for nothing.

She simmered with impotent ire all day, then went off to try and persuade the Headmaster's gargoyle to let her into his office. Neville had cooled considerably to the idea after what had happened the last time, but Ginny was determined not to give up. The DA couldn't crumble after one little setback! Given the way her day was going, however, maybe she shouldn't be surprised that she almost literally ran into Anton Tremblay as she turned the corner into the corridor leading to the hidden staircase. She jumped back and drew on him immediately.

He held up his hands and, disconcertingly, smirked. "Thought I'd find you here. You do know that you're getting rather predictable, don't you?"

Predictable to someone like Tremblay? Ugh! "Or maybe you're stalking me," she retorted.

"Maybe I am," he continued to smirk.

Double ugh! "Then why shouldn't I hex you in the face right now?"

"After I went through the trouble of stalking you? Come on, Weasley, if you really wanted to hex me you would've done it already."

"I would've if you'd been holding your wand. Unlike you Slytherins, we Gryffindors fight fair!" she snapped.

"All is fair in love and war. And we're at war, aren't we?" he waggled his eyebrows.

What? Was he really...? "Of course we're at war! What else would we be?"

"Let's say I offer a truce in the traditional way. We agree on a temporary arrangement, I guarantee you hassle-free access to this corridor."

She had to admit: he wasn't at all bad-looking, like a darker, more exotic Malfoy with pointed chin, slightly tilted copper eyes, and luxuriant waves of silky black hair.

Wait, what was she thinking? "I don't date the sons of Death Eaters!" she choked on a splurt of horror.

"Who said anything about dating?" he said, deliberately taking a step toward her and another. "I'll give you fifty galleons to find out if you're as feisty in bed as you are in a duel. _And_ I'll have my father put in a good word for yours at the Ministry. Heard he isn't doing so well, though how anyone could mess up being Head Bean Counter... Come on, Weasley, it's not a bad deal. What do you say?"

"I say piss off before I vomit all over your stupid dragonhide boots!" she gritted out through clenched teeth.

"Aww, don't be like that. Everyone knows you're after Harry Potter for his money and glory, and you've been trying to get back together with him ever since he dumped you. You might as well give up now, because the Ministry's going to catch him sooner or later. You're a Pure-blood, and if you're smart about it you can do pretty well for yourself, even if your family isn't exactly known for its discretion. I'm trying to give you good advice here. Think about it; you can thank me later."

"Are you done?" she said coldly.

"Yeah. So, how about it? There's a secret room up on the seventh floor I sometimes use..."

She hexed him in the face.

Ginny barely slept that night and had to negotiate with a fifth-year Ravenclaw to steal the first spot in Cho's office hours the next day. When she sat down, however, she found that she couldn't quite bring herself to talk about what had actually prompted her to come in the first place. She desperately made small talk until Cho said pointedly (for her), "Ginny, I know you didn't bully Arisa out of her spot just to talk about how the Tutshill Tornados are doing. So what's going on?"

"I—" she began, and then shocked herself by bursting into tears.

Eventually Cho managed to calm her down and get the story out of her. Her reaction, however, left much to be desired.

"If Anton Tremblay wants to be crass, that's on him. Why should you take anything he says to heart?"

"But how could he think that I'm the kind of girl who'd—who'd even consider that!"

"You can't really control what other people think," Cho pointed out reasonably—except Ginny was not in the mood to be reasonable.

"He offered me a fifty galleons to sleep with him! He made me feel like a-a..." she could barely make herself say it— "...a prostitute! And...and he said I only wanted to be with Harry for his money and fame."

"Does it really bother you so much?"

Ginny hated it when Cho retreated into her objective, distant Ravenclaw self when what she really needed was a friend who'd be angry and scream at the injustice of the world with her. "Of course it bothers me! He called me a _gold-digger_."

"I get that it's an insult, but why is it _that_ bad?"

How could Cho not understand this? "Because...because it's a betrayal of love!"

"Is it? Would you, Ginny Weasley, no longer love Lightning if he had not a penny to his name—if, in fact, he owed more than he could pay off in his entire lifetime?"

Ginny swallowed the lump in her throat. "I...I'll always love...Lightning. But..."

"But?"

She brushed at the tears sliding down her face. "But I don't know if I could choose him if he were penniless."

Cho merely nodded at that horrifying confession. "I think that's smart."

Ginny blinked and wiped away more tears. "You do?"

"You said you'll always love Lightning whatever his financial circumstances. So we've established that it's not a question of _love_ , but of compatibility and circumstance. That you've factored financial security into the equation of your choice for a life partner. A mere hundred years ago married women here were considered legal nonentities—the doctrine of coverture—and couldn't even hold property in their own name. Divorced women were even worse off, as the law offered them nothing. For centuries before that we were regarded as the property of our fathers and husbands—chattel. Objects, not fully human, without inner lives of our own. Even now women only make 82% of what our male counterparts make at equivalent jobs—and that's in the Muggle UK, a so-called 'First-World Country.' The Wizarding world has never conducted a similar study. Isn't it diabolical, then, that 'gold-digger' is used as a particularly insidious term to denigrate women when not so long ago our whole purpose was to attract an eligible suitor of means as the path that gave us the greatest chance of survival? Because you never hear it used against men, do you, even when 'winning the hand of a rich young woman in marriage' was a traditional and socially-approved way for a young man to make his fortune?"

Ginny gaped at the torrent of facts and numbers stated so matter-of-factly. "But...but women can earn money now, and own property—doesn't that mean that none of that should matter anymore?"

"To some people it doesn't. But why should there be a moral judgment on you if it does to you? Poverty makes some people and breaks others. When it's been your personal experience, at least you know how much of it you can bear—like when dinner at a fancy restaurant with your friends means you'll be living on baked beans for the rest of the month; when you've seen your parents hide their tears because they couldn't give you that new broom you wanted for Christmas, or maybe when you can't give your own child the same; when you work seven days a week and can still barely pay the interest on your family's medical bills. Those are difficult things, and relationships are difficult enough without them."

"But doesn't that imply that I don't think I'm good enough to support both of us if he had to be dependent on me?" Ginny fretted.

"No, it just implies that you've considered the possibility that you won't be able to. And that's rational, isn't it? Women with children aren't barred from working anymore, but there's still a lot of prejudice around that. And women are still shoehorned into jobs that earn less than men, like mediwitches instead of Healers or 'secretaries' instead of 'adjuncts' and 'junior assistants.' If you and your partner decide that one of you should stay home to take care of the children, how often is it the man who quits his career? And if for whatever reason you needed to go back to work after your children are grown, how easy would it be for you to find a job?"

A part of her wanted to be offended that Cho was applying pragmatism to True Love, but hadn't she seen her own mother struggle with those same questions? Molly Weasley always put on a brave face in front of the boys and Ginny's dad, but Ginny had seen her close to tears sometimes trying to fiddle the monthly budget into yielding enough to cover their school things. Once she'd even spotted her mother sneaking into the Floo in her best robes only to come home two hours later utterly dejected. She hadn't understood at the time what it meant—she'd thought maybe her mother was having a Grand Secret Romance—but now she abruptly recalled the memory and looked on it with new eyes.

Still—still, it was such a let-down that even her fairytale had been tainted by money, and it was so unfair! She was pretty sure none of her friends had to think about this stuff. She was definitely sure Lavender didn't think about this stuff, and she was dating Ron! Ugh!

Coincidentally, she saw Lavender and Parvati coming back from the library that evening, their heads bent together confidentially. Truth be told, she'd been sort of avoiding Parvati ever since that incident outside the Room of Requirement. It wasn't that she was prejudiced or anything—but how were you supposed to react to suddenly learning that everything you'd known about a person was wrong?

She heard a snatch of their conversation as they passed her on the way up to the girls' dormitory. "He's so dreamy! Those eyes! Those _abs_!" Lavender giggled.

"Those are good abs," Parvati giggled back. "And those biceps! He could definitely give Viktor Krum a run for his money."

"It's the beaters—they have the best arms. And the keepers have the best arses!"

Ginny's head swiveled around. "I can't believe you two! Talking about Quidditch players like that when you both have boyfriends!" She caught herself as they both turned to her quizzically. "I mean..."

"Ginny, why do you even care?" Lavender asked. "It's not like you haven't had your share of boyfriends."

"But you're dating my brother," Ginny said helplessly.

"Well, I know for a fact he keeps a copy of the Harpies' 'High-Flying Summer Fashion' calendar in his chest," Lavender said. 

"And that doesn't bother you?" Ginny asked.

"Fantasy is fantasy. And he's with me, isn't he? Besides, it's not like we're married."

"But what if he falls for one of the Harpies?"

"Then I'd just have to get together with Barry Ryan, wouldn't I?" Lavender retorted.

This conversation was getting a bit ridiculous, wasn't it? "I don't even know what you see in him, actually," Ginny mumbled.

"Of course you don't—he's your brother," Lavender replied, not unkindly. "And besides, everybody knows you only have eyes for Harry Potter."

Unaccountably, Ginny blushed.

"I don't really get it. I mean, I know he's the Chosen One and all, but he's kind of scrawny, isn't he? And short."

"And a terrible dancer," Parvati interjected.

"When he was fourteen!" Ginny responded heatedly.

"Trust me, you had a better time with Neville," Parvati assured her. "He actually put in some effort."

"How would you know? You don't even like boys!" Ginny snapped back.

"Sure I do," Parvati gave her a withering kind of look. "Not that that has to do with anything."

"But you were kissing a girl!"

"Not everybody has to be one thing or another, you know."

Didn't they? How was she supposed to know about this stuff, anyway? Ginny had no idea what to say to that, and she watched silently as Lavender and Parvati went up ahead of her. But Lavender came back down just as she reached her own dorm room. 

"Look, Ginny," she said in a low voice, as serious as Ginny had ever seen her. "Don't be mean to Parvati, all right? It may not seem like it, but she really takes things to heart. Besides, she's having a hard time at home. Her parents don't know about Leigh, and they have somebody they want her to meet."

"Meet as in date?" Ginny asked, confused.

"Meet as in marry," Lavender corrected her.

"What? That's horrible!" Ginny exclaimed.

Lavender shrugged. "It's a part of the culture, and her parents are pretty traditional."

"I'd never allow anyone to tell me who to marry!"

"Well, yeah. But it seems to work for a lot of people. Unless you want something different, of course."

"It doesn't make you uncomfortable? That Parvati wants something different?"

"Why should it? Just because she likes Leigh doesn't mean she's not my best friend anymore," Lavender stated simply. And before Ginny could figure out what to say to that, she added, "And I know you don't like me being with your brother, but if you keep glaring at us every time you see us, you'll get wrinkles."

Was she getting told off by Lavender Brown?! "What if he only likes you for your boobs?" Ginny blurted out.

"What if I only like him for his arse?" she shot back, and left.

Lavender: 1; Ginny: 0. How did _that_ happen?

Twenty-five hours before the assault on Azkaban Two began, Cho received an owl from her mother: _Please let me know if you've heard from your tailaolao. I haven't been able to reach her._

Cho immediately responded that she hadn't, but would let her mother know if she did. 

She fretted about the owl all morning. Cedric tried to reassure her: "I'm sure it was just a temporary miscommunication. You'll probably get another owl at lunch telling you that everything's all right."

But she didn't get another owl at lunch. "I want to go around to my great-grandmother's later this afternoon," she told Cedric.

"Cho, I know you've been under a lot of stress lately, but isn't this a bit dramatic? After one owl?"

"My mum wouldn't have sent that owl unless she was worried." Cho knew her mother. She was the type of person to downplay things, not burden other people with her fears.

"How do you know your mother hasn't already visited?"

Her mum had been running ragged lately, with two of her colleagues missing and another under investigation, but the thought of explaining that to Cedric exhausted her. "I want to go anyway."

"Cho..."

She suddenly hated that patient tone he was using with a vengeance. "I don't care if you come with me or not, but I'm going."

"I'm sorry I was wrong about the owl at lunch, but you know I only want what's best for you, right? We talked about this, remember? We agreed that it would be best if you kept away for a while until this issue of your mum's status is resolved."

Why was she acting like such a cunt? She felt doubly guilty: that she hadn't told Cedric about visiting her parents that day when she'd delivered Snape's scroll, and that she'd agreed to stay away in the first place. She couldn't even remember now what he'd said to persuade her. How could she be such a bad daughter? It wasn't Cedric fault that she was all over the place right now.

"I'm sorry, Cedric. I know you're trying to protect me, but this is my family."

"Who should really think about your position more and not involve you in their mess."

"What? How could you say that?"

"Because it's true! We can't help them if the Ministry thinks we're all entangled. You're a Ravenclaw; you know important objectivity is. This is the time to be using your brain, not your heart."

She couldn't disagree with any of that. Yet that night she lay awake until she couldn't stand it anymore and then, filled with an irrational but perfectly absolute resolution, grabbed her dusty broom from the closet, opened the window, and jumped out.

The November night air struck her like an open palm, and she gasped with pure sensation. But she quickly acclimated, and the delight of flying again drove every worry from her mind for a moment. Why had she and Cedric gone so long without this? They used to have such fun competing for the Snitch. Maybe that was what was missing from their relationship these days—that sense of fun they used to have?

She Apparated from Hogsmeade to her great-grandmother's flat and knew immediately that something was wrong. Her _tailaolao_ had always been a tidy person, but now there were heaps of things lying all over the sitting room floor, broken and still like the carcasses of small animals by the side of the road. Cho's whispered _lumos_ illuminated the scene for only a second. She stifled a gasp, feeling faint as the pounding of her heart roared in her ears.

Her second _lumos_ lasted no longer than her first, but somehow she remembered where the electrical light switches were. 

The harsh fluorescent lights brought the scene into full relief: the beautiful scrolls ripped from the walls, the walls themselves scorched and scored, the furniture her _tailaoye_ had built with such care for her _tailaolao_ scattered in jagged pieces all over the floor.

Cho swayed, her wand wavering in her nerveless hand. This couldn't be real...could it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Gaslighting
>   * Misogyny
>   * Ingrained homophobia
> 

> 
> Citations:
> 
>   * [Coverture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverture)
>   * [UK Pay averages by year](https://www.statista.com/statistics/280626/median-hourly-earnings-for-full-time-employees-in-the-uk-by-gender/)
>   * [UK gender pay gap](https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/tuc-research-gender-pay-gap-men-women-520290)
> 



	47. Chapter 47

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two people argue with themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Work is kicking my ass right now, so updating is going to be sporadic for a while. I'm sorry for the wait! As always, thank you for your thought-provoking comments and insight!
> 
> You may want to put down your beverage-of-choice for the first part of this chapter. Just a thought.

Fourteen hours before the assault on Azkaban Two began, Harry was having an argument with himself. Not that that was anything new, but the argument was also giving him a very inconvenient erection. Not that _that_ was anything new these days, either. Being seventeen again definitely came with its own set of unanticipated problems.

_Why don't I remember this being such a problem when_ I _was a teenager?_

_Oh, you mean when you were fantasizing about Ginny's 'flowery scent?' You couldn't find her clitoris with a map and Point-me spell, those first few times._

_...Right. Thanks for that. And this is relevant because...?_

_I bet I won't have any trouble finding Severus' prostate. And I wouldn't mind drawing him a map if he has any trouble with mine. I want to feel his beautiful hands on me everywhere. On me and in me._

This was not helpful, for any number of reasons.

_And his tongue. And his cock. And I want to touch him, too. Everywhere he will allow. And taste him, and hear him moan my name..._

_This is not helpful!_

_You're the one who's watched gay porn, not me! And don't tell me it was for educational purposes._

_If real sex were like porn I'd never want to have sex again._

_Fair, but this is Severus we're talking about. I bet his sweat tastes just like he smells. Tangy like an evergreen tree in winter._

Harry groaned internally. Both of him. For different reasons. Or maybe the same reason.  
_  
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness:  
We're fighting for these ideals; I'm not settling for less.  
You talk a good game—now put your words to action.  
Sex positivity isn't just an abstraction!_

_You want him, don't deny it.  
Hero? Friend? Those trainers in your closet belie it!  
Still pretending you don't wanna jump his bones?  
Or could it be that you just don't have the stones?  
_  
_Seriously?_  
_  
Eyes wide shut, I'm not blind;  
Tell it to somebody who can't read your mind.  
Hey Gramps, go put on your big-boy pants,  
Try some compliments 'stead of the usual rants.  
'Cause you know, I'd really like to be kissed—  
_For real _; wanna hear the rest of my bucket list?  
How about this one: his voice suffused with pleasure—  
It'd be a marvel of the multi-verse by any measure.  
And my lips against that patch of skin  
tantalizing with the texture of silk beneath his chin.  
I don't care who's bottom or who's on top;  
I just want his naked body against mine, full stop.  
Mic drop.  
_  
_You really want to do this? Fine, let's do this._  
_  
Sure, the Yanks wrote a real nice Declaration.  
Gave 'ole George the finger, built a fine nation:  
A beacon of hope, a tower of democracy,  
A restless dream of meritocracy._

_But history forgets who paid the debts:  
Sally Hemings, for one, and we've barely begun; there's a metaphysical ton.  
How do we count the cost  
of those enslaved and massacred when even their names are lost?_

_That's the boner sorted, then: excellent.  
I've put on my big-boy pants—now you're petulant?  
Oh, you wanted to talk about naked times instead.  
Was I to leave the pedantic part unsaid?_

_Now that you're Mr. Sex-With-Severus-Positive,  
Court has changed its mind about the nose, I suppose?  
Let's agree to ixnay the odes.  
My point is: don't be a prick.  
Friendship's not consolation for missing out on dick.  
The pursuit of happiness can't be 'mine above all,'  
Nor liberty 'I do what I want, so fuck it all.'_

_Say we got all that we wanted: years would be too brief,  
and we have only months to leave him nothing but grief.  
Given that depressing story, downward trajectory,  
wouldn't it be better to exit as a fond but distant memory?  
_  
_That sucks! You know that sucks, right?_

_And not the good kind of sucking. Quite._

_Sometimes I feel like I'll die if he touches me and die if he won't._

_Sounds like a lose-lose proposition._

_How can you be so...so flippant? I know you feel the exact same way I do._

_Sometimes, if you can't change reality, you've just got to stand it._

_How? How do you stand it? That's what nobody ever tells you._

_Probably because nobody ever really knows._

_What good is being an adult, then?_

What answer could he give to that?

Something had changed. Severus was aware of it in himself like Venomous Tentacula juice, burning through his veins to his extremities and back again, circling around his heart before continuing on inexorably to his brain.

What did one do with being—not forgiven, but blessed? With this venom in the blood, which was at once agony and euphoria? 

Part sanctification and part divinely-inspired prophecy, Merlin himself was said to have given such a blessing to Arthur, the Once and Future King, before he had sailed for Avalon. What was a man like Severus to do with a thing like that? He'd given up the woman he loved, his best friend, to an egomaniacal psychopath, and then bullied her son and his friends for six years out of pure spite. Whatever was left of his soul was surely begrimed beyond all possibility of purification. 

Some part of him wanted to protest that Harry had had no idea what he was doing. And anyway, Severus didn't hold with mystical claptrap. But if he truly believed Harry's assertion that he had died and traveled across worlds, was it not more consistent to conclude that he'd known what he was doing in this as well? Ergo: the resistance was coming from within himself, not from the evidence at hand. 

And it was hard to deny what he had felt in that moment, as if he were seen in his entirety—the heroic and the cowardly, the glorious along with the shameful—and judged to be worthy. To be _enough_. One tiny speck in a vast interconnected universe that was exactly where it belonged. Where he belonged.

The words had not been mere words. They had held the power of transmorgification. They were not a passive act of compassion, but an unflinching and implacable demand. _This_ was what it meant to be blessed.

It hurt to be asked to give up a part of himself, what was wholly his. Even if that part were hatred of himself. Maybe especially because of it. For what was he without it?

Exculpation from a martyr, he'd spat at Dumbledore with all due derision. Except he could never have predicted the reality of it. To receive it from a man—from this man, sitting across from him reading a report from Professor Sprout on their supply of dragondung, which was apparently important enough that she felt compelled to send him detailed accounting on it monthly. It was excruciating that someone in the world had seen him flayed down to his very soul, and for minutes on end he fantasized about obliterating Harry Potter's every atom from the fabric of reality. But how empty and bleak the world would be then. Maybe it was the world that needed to be obliterated atom by atom.

But then there would be that look of sadness flashing across Harry's downcast face, and something in him would ache to remember that this was a person with his own doubts and sorrows, guilt and regrets, not some kind of otherworldly being sent to punish Severus for his sins. And wouldn't it be much more satisfying to hunt down whoever it was that had put that look on Harry's face and obliterate their existence from the fabric of reality instead?

That line of thinking, too, was dangerous. A flesh-and-blood Harry could be touched, could be hurt. It meant that Severus could touch him, hurt him. (Had he ever been able to touch anyone without hurting them?) And if he should give in to the wild urge to press him against the wall beneath Dumbledore's painting and kiss him, he would hear Harry moan. In pain or pleasure?—he wasn't sure which. Perhaps that was the most dangerous thought of all.

"Dinner," Severus blurted out, because it was a surefire way to get Harry to stay a little longer. He had had to resort to it frequently of late, though he hated eating in front of other people. Either he had to eat 'normally,' or endure endless questions about his need to separate a meal into its component parts, a tactic he had come up with as a child to make his food last a little longer. What was learned in childhood was difficult to unlearn, and he found that it was the only way he could enjoy food now. Harry, to his credit, had never commented.

Harry put down Sprout's report. "Nice timing," he smiled wryly. "You know, I'd never have suspected Pomona of this much passive aggression if I hadn't read her reports. And her insistence that you approve each one separately is almost Slytherin."

Severus snorted. "Slytherin is if she were deliberately misrepresenting the numbers. Fortunately she's too enamored of her precious plants to sacrifice them on the altar of spite."

"Good point. She's not the kind of person to cut off her nose to spite her face," Harry responded, and his grin said the rest.

Severus didn't deign to retort. And anyway, it was true.

"If McLaggen really tried to take over Hogwarts, what would the professors do? Would they turn against you, do you think?" Harry wondered later as they lingered over dessert and coffee. 

"I have no doubt many would want to," Severus responded thoughtfully. "But I should hope that they would place the safety of the students above all else."

Harry looked uncertain for a moment, then asked, "What if you surrendered Hogwarts to him? You could come to Grimmauld Place. Fight Andromeda for newt eyeballs and lab space."

Severus met his gaze. "Would he protect all the students, regardless of House or parentage?"

Harry sighed. "I'd like to believe he would, but I'm not sure."

"Then let me know when you are."

His coffee was lukewarm now, but still he sipped as slowly as he could, prolonging the moment when Harry would leave and take all the warmth in the room with him into the night, to his other life where Severus wasn't. How had a simple _good night_ taken on such significance in his life, a daily punctuation, a full stop between contentment and desolation? It was pathetic and infuriating and only made bearable by the way his heart jolted at Harry's cheerful _good morning_ when he returned with the rising sun as if he were Apollo in his chariot making a benevolent visit to a friend before bringing much-needed light to the rest of the world.

Severus knew himself. He would keep all the light for himself if he could. Let the birds fall from their branches, their hymns unsung. Let the plants wither and die. Let the world starve for want of Harry's light, if only it could be his. He was still that little boy who wanted everything because he had nothing.

Had he learned nothing from Lily?

Harry threw back the last of his coffee as if it were an intoxicant of a different variety, his neck arched in a long beautiful line that forced Severus to avert his eyes. After moment to compose himself he looked back, braced for the moment of leave-taking. But Harry paused as he set down the cup and asked, "I was wondering—um, I found your translation of Rilke's 'I Circle God' and loved it. Did you ever translate anything else?"

Severus blinked, took in what Harry had said, and leaned back in his chair with his hand over his face. "I don't know what possessed me. I'm no kind of wordsmith," he mumbled.

"I beg to differ. I used to toss my Potions essays into the fire so I wouldn't have to read your comments on them." He could hear Harry's smile. " _Jeder Engel ist schrecklich_."

"The correct response was to do your own reading and not plagiarize Ms. Granger." He winced at the mangled accent. "'The _Duineser Elegien_ are 859 lines long!"

"I take that as a 'no,' then?"

"That's a no. But I am rather fond of Stephen Mitchell's translation."

"Hmm, not sure if I've heard that one. I don't suppose you have it here?"

"I do. But I'll have to go down to the dungeons to fetch it. Winky wouldn't be able to get past the obscuration spells."

"How about I come with you, then? And I'd love to hear you read it, if you're willing."

He had no idea what had put that hopeful tone in Harry's voice. "I thought you disliked the dungeons?" he asked, which was far from a refusal.

"When I'm sick or depressed, the dungeons remind me of being sick and alone locked in the cupboard under the stairs," Harry explained as if it weren't a description of horrific abuse that had Severus wishing he could turn Petunia into a thin stain of grease on her own sitting room carpet. "But I wouldn't mind creating some better associations."

Which was how Severus found himself reading aloud from Rilke's _Duino Elegies_ with Harry a gentle line of warmth against his side.

> Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?  
>  and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:  
>  I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.  
>  For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,  
>  and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.  
>  Every angel is terrifying.  
>  And so I hold myself back and swallow the call-note of my dark sobbing.  
>  Ah, whom can we ever turn to in our need?  
> 

This, too, was a blessing, one with its own set of demands. But whatever the price, Severus was willing to pay it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it's _HP_ x _Hamilton_! Fervent apologies to Lin-Manuel Miranda. I am soooo sorry! (But also, erm, not? *ducks flames and runs to grab sticks and marshmellows*)
> 
> Quoted in this chapter: lines 8/859 of the _Duino Elegies_ by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell, various publications, 1992.


	48. Chapter 48

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cho's night continues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the end notes for specific warnings for this chapter.

She was shivering. It took a while for Cho to begin to notice things again, like how cold she was. She stumbled over to the window and cast _reparo_ on the cracks, then a shield spell when she realized that her repair charm was not strong enough to fix the large jagged holes in the glass. She couldn't think. What was she supposed to do now?

She had to keep calm. What had happened to her _tailaolao_? Had she been robbed? Was it Death Eaters? Someone from her past? 

Was it the Ministry?

Had they taken away Cho's mother, too? She sank back against the wall and pressed a hand against her mouth to hold back a sob. 

No. She couldn't panic. She had to _think_. First she had to try and contact her mother. But not with a Patronus. She needed something less conspicuous. There had been a telephone on an end table next to the sofa. She found it lying upside-down near the kitchen wall. She knelt and turned it right-side up, then picked up the receiver. The silence mocked her. She bit her lip and slumped back before realizing that it had been ripped from its cord. It took her several minutes to plug the end of the cord into its receptacle in the phone with her cold shaking hands, but once she did so she heard the droning dial tone, somehow comforting in its very mundaneness. She dashed away tears and dialed her mother. 

Her heart sank as the phone rang again and again and nobody picked up. She hung up as the answering machine kicked in and tried again, still hoping. But finally she could no longer deny reality, and set the receiver back in its cradle. More tears fell, and for a long moment her mind blanked. She struggled to push back against the wave of despair. There was another way. Kitchen drawer, second from the right. Stand up. _Stand up!_

She climbed clumsily to her feet and walked mechanically into the kitchen, feeling as if she were a puppeteer pulling the strings of her own body. Left foot, right foot. Don't look at the overturned kitchen table, the dented pots and broken porcelain. She had a task to do. She needed to stay focused! 

The silverware drawer had been spared. Somewhere in the back of her mind Cho thought: so it's not thieves. But then again, had she really thought it would be? She lifted the tray out of the drawer, then touched a spring in the back to unlock the false bottom. Inside were her great-grandparents' secret stash of talismans, created many years ago when they were still young cultivators living in a homeland Cho had never visited.

She carefully pulled out the stack of imperial gold paper, each bearing an arcane symbol painted in blood. They were not faded, but still as bright as the day she'd found them playing pretend among the sweet-smelling robes and dresses in her _tailaolao_ 's closet. Her _tailaolao_ had sat her down and explained what they were, but Cho's mother had been furious when she'd overheard. After that Cho's visits to her great-grandparents had become much less frequent.

Cho knew that her mother's parents, Cho's grandparents, had been killed in a night hunt when they'd come across a horde of corpse-puppets—Inferi—recently raised by a rogue cultivator. Cho's mother, only eleven years old, had lived in an orphanage until Cho's _tailaoye_ had found her and brought her back with him to live in the UK. She never spoke about those years, not even the one and only time Cho had scrounged up the courage to ask her about it. 

Her mother hadn't wanted Cho to have anything to do with spiritual cultivation, but her _tailaolao_ had insisted on teaching her this one thing.

She sorted through the stack until she found the symbol she needed and wrote a simple message on the back: "Mum, something's happened to _tailaolao_. Please tell me you're all right." She took several long, even breaths and held the talisman straight up between her fore and middle fingers. She closed her eyes and imagined her magic traveling through her body, the _qi_ uniting her with all living things, with Yin and Yang, Heaven and Earth, before blowing it out over the talisman. Then she flung it outward. The bright scarlet-and-gold sheet flared into flame in midair before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

Cho swayed with reaction. What now? How could she find out what had happened? If the Ministry was involved, could Cedric's father help? Should she send a message to Cedric? She didn't want him to be angry with her, but it was her fault for sneaking out without telling him. Had he missed her? Was he worrying about her? How could she be such a horrible girlfriend and fiancée?

She longed for his strong arms to hold her, his confident voice to tell her that everything would be all right. She wiped away more tears as she tucked the talismans back into their secret compartment, replaced the silverware tray, and closed the drawer. 

Then she summoned one of her most precious memories: she and Cedric flying together, performing loop de loops and dives and elaborate figure eights around each other like a pair of lunatic occamies; Cedric shouting: "Try it now!" and Cho pulling out her wand, casting _Expecto Patronum!_ right there in midair, laughing with delight as her first fully materialized Patronus erupted from its tip, a beautiful silvery swan soaring away from them towards the beckoning azure glow of the horizon, Cedric whooping with joy as they raced after it...

"Cedric, please come. I need you," she whispered as that same swan's light faded into the blank darkness of the sky.

He found her seated on the floor casting _reparo_ after _reparo_ on the splintered pieces of the end table—uselessly, for her magic wasn't strong enough to repair damage on such a catastrophic scale. Even so, she could not seem to stop herself from trying.

"Cho, what...?" he sounded shocked. "What happened here?"

Overwhelmed by relief, she flung herself into his arms. "Cedric!"

He hugged her tight before peering worriedly into her face. "Are you all right? What happened?"

"I—I don't know," she stammered. "It was like this when I got here. I don't know what happened to my great-grandmama."

"Have you called the Muggle police? It must have been a robbery, right?"

"I..." she hesitated. "I'm not sure if that's true..."

"Well, what else could it be?" Cedric frowned. "She's not a witch; this has nothing to do with our world." 

Cho bit her lip. "But what if it has something to do with the Ministry?"

"What would the Ministry want with an old woman who doesn't even have magic? Come on, Cho, I know you're worried about her, but you have to be rational about this." 

"I...I just feel like it has something to do with us, with the Ministry. What if it's connected to my mother's case? Isn't it too much of a coincidence that this happened _now_?"

"Look, I know the Ministry has its problems, but you can't blame them for everything!" Cedric argued.

"The Ministry doesn't 'have its problems,' it's being run by Death Eaters!" she flared.

"If it's so objectionable, then why don't you quit and find yourself another job?"

"Because you asked me to come with you!"

"Oh, so now it's my fault?"

Cho pressed her hand against her lips to hold back a sob.

"Stop crying!" he shouted. "Do you know how manipulative you are when you do that?"

She couldn't help it, and when she opened her mouth to say that, only sobs came out.

"All right, look, let's both calm down, all right? I'm going back to Hogwarts to ask Snape to give you some time off. Meanwhile, you need to call the Muggle police and explain the situation to them. This is not something that we should be involved with. They're the ones who need to take care of it. You know that, right? Hey, come here." He drew her into his arms again. "Everything will be all right. They'll find your great-grandmother. She's a tough old lady, right?"

Suddenly there was a thud at the window, and they both jumped.

"Who's there?" Cedric barked, whipping out his wand.

Cho ran to the window and looked out. Her mother's owl Monkey was wheeling around to make a second pass, and she hurriedly dismissed her shield. The little barn owl thudded into Cho's hands, his chest heaving, and dropped the scroll in his beak before flinging himself back out into the winter night. Her mother must have told him to return immediately; he was the only owl they owned.

Cho unrolled the scroll with trembling hands. It said: "Aurors have arrested _tailaolao_. Your father and I are inquiring. I'll write once I know more."

A wave of cold passed through Cho. Aurors had arrested her _tailaolao_? How could that be? _Why?_

"Cho? What's going on?"

She wished she knew. She passed the parchment to Cedric silently.

"Aurors have arrested your great-grandmother? That can't be right. What would they want with an eighty-something-year-old woman who isn't even a witch?"

Cho remained silent, her mind nothing but snow and white noise.

"Come on, Cho, let's go home. It has to be a mistake, and everything will be cleared up by morning."

"I...I want to stay," Cho said slowly through the fog that blanketed her mind. "I-I don't want my great-grandmama to come back to this. She shouldn't have to see her home like this." 

"Cho, you're in shock. You're not thinking clearly. You need a good night's sleep, and we can talk about it in the morning."

"I need to be doing something. I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway."

"You're being unreasonable. It'd take someone of Dumbledore's powers to put all this to right."

"Then I'll do it by hand!" Cho cried. 

"Fine!" he threw up his hands. "But I'm going back to Hogwarts. Come back when you've come to your senses and you can stop treating me like the enemy when I'm just trying to do what's best for you."

After Cedric left, Cho sank back down to the ground and buried her face in her hands. How could she be so horrible to Cedric when he was just trying to help her? Why was she always snapping at him when he was trying so hard to be patient with her? Why could she never come up with the words to make him understand?

He was right; she could never hope to clean all of this up by herself, especially by hand. She hugged her knees, curling into herself. What are you doing, Cho? What are you doing, what are you doing? You can't do this by yourself. You can't do this. 

She thought longingly of her warm bed, of basking in front of the fireplace with Cedric laughing by her side, of a night when this was not her reality. But this was her reality, and all the wishing in the world would not change it. She slowly reached for the phone and dialed.

"Hullo?"

The voice on the other side was thick with sleep, and Cho pushed against the guilt of heaping her problems on somebody else.

"Hullo, Shav? This is Cho. I'm sorry to call you so late..."

"Who the fuck?" Came another voice—female, also obviously just roused from sleep.

"Oh! I'm really sorry to bother you when you have company. It's okay, it's nothing, don't worry about it."

"Hey, Cho, it's all right. What's going on? What do you need?"

She haltingly gave him a brief outline of what had happened, only remembering to change 'Aurors' to 'the police' at the last minute.

After ascertaining that she was in no danger, he told her to "sit tight, we'll be there in a tick."

'We' turned out to be Shav with his girlfriend Diana and, to her surprise, a sheepish Omar who gave her a hug and then looked around with wide eyes.

"Yow, Cho, you got connections to da Triad you ain't told any of us about? 'Cause I got a cousin..."

"Shut it, Omar," Diana, a tall, slim, dark-skinned woman with large observant eyes and an afro twice as big as Cho's head slapped him on the arm. "You here to work or to chat?"

"Work, Ma'am!" he gave her a salute and hastened back downstairs.

Shav walked around slowly before squatting down by the pieces of the coffee table. He carefully picked up a carved leg and eyed it critically. "Beautiful work, this. Your grandfather made it?"

"Great-grandfather," Cho replied softly.

Shav nodded. "Workmanship like this is hard to come by these days. It'd be a right shame to scrap it. You want me to ask my uncle to take a look, see if he can do anything with it? He's pretty good at his stuff."

"Could you?" Cho asked hopefully. "I'd be really, really grateful. Our whole family would. And I'll pay, of course."

"Hey, don't you worry none. Let him take a look, and he'll tell you what's what. You've got it separated out, yeah? So we'll pack just it like you have it. You did good, Cho. Leave the rest to us."

"Come on, let's give the boys some room to work." Diana tugged Cho into the kitchen, which Cho had swept and cleaned as much as she could, and pressed her into a chair. "You got anything to drink around here? Coffee? Tea?"

"Try the center cabinet."

Diana put on the kettle and sat down next to Cho. 

"I'm so sorry to be such a bother, Diana" Cho said softly, staring down at her hands.

Diana snorted. "Shav loves being the big man 'round town, so don't you worry. And call me Didi—everybody does. You got anyone I should phone? Parents? Boyfriend?"

"I've already contacted my mum. She's trying to figure out what's going on." Cho hesitated before adding, "Cedric was here, but he didn't want to stay." Why was that so hard to say? It was the truth, after all.

"What, he's too good to pick up a coupla pieces of wood?"

"No, he-he didn't want me to stay either."

"He doesn't wanna help out your family?"

"He's just trying to do what's best for me," Cho responded, feeling oddly defensive. "And I made him worry about me."

"Right, 'cause he's a hero and he knows better than you what you need. If he were here I'd kick his arse so hard he'd rip apart the space-time continuum. Retroactively divorce his grandparents."

Cho couldn't help but let out a small laugh at that. "But if he were here you wouldn't need to kick his arse," she pointed out.

Didi smiled slowly. "Oh, don't bet on that."

Suddenly Cho thought: _I wish Cedric had done this for me._ Just sat with her and made tea. Just that small thing. Tears welled up in her eyes again.

Didi stood—did she think Cho was angling for sympathy? "I'm sorry!" she gasped. "I can't help it. It just comes out."

"'s all right. Cry if you wanna. Here." Didi set a steaming, fragrant cup in front of her and sat down again. "Lemme guess, Cedric don't like you crying?"

"He...says it's manipulative," Cho admitted with an obscure sense of shame.

"Yep, 'cause it's all about him, o'course. Damn, girl, tell me again why you're with this tosser?"

"He's not. I'm just, it's me. I don't say things the right way. If I could just communicate better..."

"You make perfect sense to me," Didi declared. "So how's about we assume you communicate fine and try again?"

"I'm making it seem worse than it is," Cho protested. "If you met him, you'd see that he's a good person. And besides, he needs me."

"You know who I need? My hair dresser, that's who. That lady's a marvel with a blow dryer, an' this baby needs her pampering. You think I sass her? Nuh-uh. It's 'yes ma'am,' 'no ma'am,' 'please an' thank you _ma'am_.' So how come this boyfriend who needs you so much can't treat you better than I treat my hairdresser?"

"But he's right, I do cry too much," Cho wiped at her eyes.

"Yeah, an' I bet he cries on you plenty. Men are big crybabies. You ask Omar how many shirts of mine he ruined after his girl dumped him. Snot dripping outta his nose an' all."

"Didi!" came a loud protest from the sitting room. "You promised not to say nuthin'!"

"Cho won't tell!" Didi yelled back, then confided, "An' Shav bawled like a little kid when Princess Diana died."

"Didi!" the protest came from Shav this time, and Cho gave a hiccuping laugh through her tears.

"Own it, Shavar!" Didi shot back. "Anyways, you got some place to stay? Need a ride? Or you can call your mum and take the couch at ours, wake up at noon, watch _Doctor Who_ reruns with me. I just quit my job, so I'm gonna veg all day."

"You said you got made redundant!" Omar interjected.

"Quit, fired, whatever!" Didi retorted. In a lower voice, she confided, "My knob head manager tells me he'll promote me if I suck his dick, I tell him I didn't work my arse off to be his side-piece. An' he should get a dog so he can learn to lick his own balls. Don't tell Shav tho—he'd blow his top."

"That's horrible!" Cho exclaimed. "Can't you report him?"

"His word 'gainst mine," Didi shrugged. "Forget it. So?"

"It's really kind of you, but I don't want to be more trouble," Cho answered with internal regret, for it made tomorrow actually seem bearable.

"Right, we just met, so you don't know this about me," Didi replied, "but I never offer things I don't wanna give. Life's too short. My mum had me at sixteen to a wanker who ran off before I was born, so I'm not gonna go around spending my pity on anybody else. When I say I wanna veg with you, it means I wanna veg with you. If you wanna veg with me, all you gotta do is say, 'Yes, Didi, I wanna come watch _Doctor Who_ with you."

"Yes, Didi, I do want to come watch _Doctor Who_ with you," Cho smiled. "And also, I hope there's ice cream."

"Hell yeah. Hey Shav, Tesco's stop on the way back for ice cream!"

"Par-tay!" Omar cheered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Gaslighting
>   * Emotional/psychological abuse
> 



	49. Chapter 49

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Those who live by the sword.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the end notes for specific warnings for this chapter.

It had fallen silent again, the kind of silence that made the hair at the back of Dora's neck stand on end. Tate's team had cancelled their Disillusionment: it would be useless if they were truly facing werewolves, and made the risk of friendly fire that much higher.

"Lawson, tell Grenon to report," Tate ordered.

Lawson, a man in his mid-thirties with a round face, wide chin, and prematurely graying russet hair, nodded, eyes strained. Hardly had his pine marten darted into the undergrowth than they spotted three silvery shapes coming back towards them: a gibbon swinging through the high branches, a cardinal winging frantically through the air, a honey badger barraging through every obstacle in its path.

Dora was staring directly at the cardinal when it simply faded away between one wing beat and the next, dissipated like thin morning fog in the sun. The honey badger ran on for a little longer before it slowed and then stopped as if disoriented. It turned in a confused circle, collapsed to the ground, and disappeared. The gibbon swung itself out into empty air and yelled in Grenon's voice, "Run! They've got us surrounded! We can't—" And then it screamed like the animal it resembled. It vanished before it hit the ground.

"That was Halley, O'Conner, and Grenon," muttered Lawson, sounding dazed. "I can't believe it."

"Lassimer, tell the General we're three down—possibly more—facing a force of werewolves, numbers unknown."

Lassimer, white-lipped, attempted to summon his Patronus in a voice that shook. He failed thrice before Tate commanded, "Forget the Patronus, just go. Petrinov, go with him."

"This the company you were expecting?" Mad-Eye asked, almost casual, as Lassimer and Petrinov disappeared into the blank maw of the concrete tunnel.

"Not quite," Tate admitted tersely. "Now's the time to get out if you're getting out."

"My husband's still in there!" Dora retorted heatedly.

"I've never run from a fight, and I don't plan on starting," added Mad-Eye, a rock-steady pillar now that danger was upon them.

Dora drew closer to the others, forming a small outward-facing circle. A moment later they heard something crashing through the undergrowth toward them, a drunken hippogriff less rampaging than lost. Dora felt her heartbeat climb erratically higher.

"Hold," Mad-Eye commanded. They held as the sound came closer...and closer.

A man lurched out of the trees. It look a minute for Dora to recognize him: Jeremy Perrot. A bear of a man, he and his much more compact older brother Carmen were the long-suffering butt of many a joke in the Watchers for their comical height contrast and diametrically opposed personalities. Now his ginger hair and full beard were matted black with blood and dirt, his robes torn at shoulder and thigh, his left leg a mess of mangled muscle and exposed bone. 

"Tate," he gasped, dragging himself forward by grasping desperately at shrubs and low branches, "help me. They're coming. You've got to sound the retreat."

"Report, soldier! What's the situation?" Tate commanded urgently.

"Werewolves," Perrot coughed, the whites showing all around his bulging eyes, "turned in broad daylight. Dozens of them. They g-got my brother, took out the rest of the team. I'm the only one left."

"You got bit?" Tate demanded.

"Shoulder and leg," Perrot confirmed. "Got my wand, too, don't know how I got a—"

" _Avada Kedavra!_ " 

Perrot slumped to the ground, stunned eyes staring at nothing.

Dora whirled to Tate. "You—!"

"Hated to do it, but it had to be done," Tate shook his head regretfully.

"He needed help! We could've helped him!"

"Helped him how? We don't have a Healer, and neither do you. You've got werewolves turning without a full moon—what's to say he wouldn't have turned and attacked us, too?"

Dora shook at this horrifying logic. "He was a man, not a sick animal to be put down!"

"He was a liability and a danger," Tate corrected. "I only—"

He fell silent as three dark shapes emerged from the shadows of trees. They were enormous, perhaps half again Remus' size in his werewolf form. They paused for a second as if to fully drive home the terror inspired by their appearance. Then they bounded forward, death in their glinting yellow eyes, razor fangs bared in muzzles already dripping with blood.

The man next to Dora broke and tried to run—a younger Auror who had probably never come face-to-face with a turned werewolf in his life. He was hunted down in a flash, his throat snapped like a twig between powerful jaws. That wolf fell to her _Petrificus_ and an AK from Mad-Eye.

"Now's not the time to be squeamish," Mad-Eye tossed at her, but she shook her head; she couldn't, and that was the end of it.

She sidestepped and blasted back the wolf lunging for her. Lawson wasn't so lucky; apparently having forgotten that werewolves quickly shook off the lower-power spells in a wizard's arsenal, he tried to stun the wolf targeting him. It went right through, dodged Tate's _bombarda maxima_ in a sideways slithering maneuver that should have been impossible for a being of its size, and caught Lawson's leg as he scrambled backwards. Lawson screamed and fell to the ground, right calf tattered ribbons of blood and flesh, wand flying out of his hand. Dora cast a circle of flames that had the wolf flinching away; Tate took it down with a _confringo_ while Mad-Eye caught the last wolf with the Killing Curse.

She was panting—all of them were. Mad-Eye was noticeably paler after multiple AKs. Tate turned toward Lawson, wand in hand. She instantly trained her wand on him. All of them froze for a second.

"Stop," she growled.

Lawson was stark white, wide eyes blank with shock, clawed hands clenched around his thigh. He said nothing.

Tate sighed. "This is why women have no place in war," he muttered. "Too soft-hearted, can't do what needs to be done." To Lawson he said, "In the past men have chosen death over becoming monsters. So which are you going chose, soldier? To die a man and a hero, or live as an animal and a coward?"

Lawson was mute, but she could see the horror suffusing his eyes. "That's not—" she began, when Mad-Eye interrupted her.

"You'd better point that wand at somebody who's actually an enemy, Tate, because we've got enough of them around without turning on each other."

"Sounds to me like retirement's made you soft, Moody," Tate retorted. "Twenty years ago you would've been the first to agree with me."

"Maybe so, but I've done a bit of thinking since then. Did we even try to save anyone, twenty years ago? Or did we keep fighting until we couldn't distinguish friend from foe anymore? The Order's working to save people this time around—and it's working. We've evacuated families, entire villages. You-Know-Who is the war we lost, Tate. That's why this next generation is having to fight him all over again. Maybe it's time to step aside and let them try some new ideas."

"You-Know-Who is the war we lost because Dumbledore fooled us all into believing that a baby was capable of defeating the greatest evil the world has ever known. And where's his precious savior now? Running scared, hiding like the kid he is. Well, I don't blame him for that. Things never would've gotten this bad if we'd done a proper job of sweeping out the rubbish the first time around. That's the lesson I've learned, and you'll learn it soon enough, too."

This last was said to Dora, who responded coldly, "Harry's ten times the leader McLaggen is. He's saving people rather then running around getting them killed."

"Saving people won't end this war, will it? You-Know-Who will get them in the end, unless we stop him." He nodded at Lawson. "And that means making sacrifices when it's required of us. Either of you know any healing spells that can heal werewolf bites? Because I sure don't. He'll probably bleed out in a couple of hours anyway, a slow lingering death over a quick one. Better to—"

" _Avada Kedavra!_ " 

Dora threw herself to one side a second too late, but the sickly green bolt hadn't been meant for her. Tate fell quietly backwards, mouth open, his final thought trumped by that full stop which ends all justifications. 

The man who had cast the curse approached them with his wand holstered and empty hands held out. He had a long face made longer by ginger hair which had already receded to expose the top of his head, though he looked to be in his early forties at most. He was limping and covered with blood, but he had no serious injuries that Dora could see. "Had to be done, Moody. Those were his words when he killed my brother, weren't it?" His eyes were fixed on the still form of Jeremy Perrot.

"Perrot," Mad-Eye didn't seem surprised. "Your brother left you for dead."

"So all of us will be, soon enough," Perrot shrugged. "Looks like the General's made a name for himself with the Dark Lord, at least. I saw the Lestranges back there leading the charge, and they're not here to take prisoners. They've got maybe two dozen turned werewolves with them, a couple of Death Eaters. None of us are making it out of here alive."

"Not what your General had in mind, I take it," Mad-Eye remarked. "Tonks, you'd better get your Patronus off to Granger and ask her to send reinforcements if she can."

"Reinforcements!" Perrot barked something that was not a laugh. "Nobody even knows where we are. Admit it, they've got us trapped like flies in a jar!"

Tonks turned away and summoned her Patronus, asking it to relay to Hermione what had happened. Asking her to find them, though she didn't know how it could be done.

"All right," Mad-Eye nodded once her Patronus had bounded away. "Now you'll have to go in there and find them a way out. This entrance is going to be overrun, so either look for an alternative or dig yourselves in until help gets here."

"There is no alternative," Perrot shook his head. "They've got it sealed tight. The Dark Lord himself probably had a hand in it. It's Azkaban Two! You think you can just walk in there and walk out again like it's your weekend holiday cottage? You go in there, you're not coming out again. Alive or otherwise."

Dora ignored him. "What about you?"

"Always knew I was going out with my boot on," Mad-Eye stated. "Perrot, you with me?"

"Nothing else to do, is there?" Perrot shrugged, drawing his wand.

Dora looked to the man on the ground. "Lawson?" She pleaded, "Come with me. We'll find a way out."

He shook his head slowly. "I don't think so. I'd rather meet my death with the sun on my face than in a dank hole in the ground." He looked up at the heavily overcast sky. "Eh. You know. Toss me my wand, will you?"

Dora did so, and then handed him most of her dittany and blood-replenishing potions. She turned to Mad-Eye, opened her mouth, and closed it again to his growled, "No speeches."

"Trust your instincts," he instructed her, pithy to the last. "Whatever you've got, now's the time to use it. You've got things, people to live for. So live."

She nodded, unable to speak, and turned away. Just as she entered the tunnel, she heard him add: "Constant vigilance!"

She smiled a little past the tightness in her throat. And then the darkness swallowed her whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:
> 
>   * Graphic depictions of violence
> 



End file.
